Law of Gravity
by Chicory
Summary: The best love stories are the ones we have to fight for. The end isn't just an end — it's a victory. Jasper, Alice, and the seperate paths they take to find each other.
1. Prologue

**Prologue  
**—**Monterrey, Mexico. 1885—**

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"Lykes, Soren."

A newborn steps out of the ranks, still moving with the tense, catlike gait of an animal. I assess him coolly, taking in the scholarly stoop of his shoulders, the small hands and soft jaw. Even if his name had not been scrawled on Maria's death list, I would have cut him from the others based on body-type alone; with no extraordinary talent or skills, his strength — his usefulness, will fade with the coming of the year mark. His emotions are arrogance and elation, because Maria is clever enough, because Maria is _cruel_ enough, to tell them that tonight is their reward. They do not understand the sickly sweet smell of smoke and spices coming from outside the mansion walls, and the faint screams they hear excite them rather than terrify them. They imagine these agonized sounds are being pulled from the mouths of human victims, the "prize" they were promised by the ruby-eyed beauty who lounges on the chaise behind me.

"Jasper," she says quietly, with a hint of a roll on the r. "Hurry back, won't you? I'll want to dance."

I nod at her once, a half-smile on my face as if I am pleased by her blatant indifference. As if I cannot wait to return and hold her in my arms. As if anything she says or does matters to me anymore. I descend the marble staircase with a tight jaw, and make my way to where the newborns restlessly wait. They are dressed in finery for the fête, a shameless waste of silk and velvet, a crude attempt to assuage Maria's conscience — like a cigarette and a blindfold before an execution. Only two of the year-olds remain now. Next to the doomed Soren Lykes, there is a tall soldier with cold eyes and an extraordinary sense of smell. The latter will survive the night, and possibly the next year. If not, there will always be another fête, another dance, and another bonfire.

I motion for Soren Lykes to follow me out the doors, and leave the other one behind. Inside, I hear Maria call for music with two sharp claps, and the clatter of ignorant human servants as they wind between the dancers, serving goblets of suspiciously opaque merlot.

Five steps behind me, I can feel Soren's aura simmering with bloodlust. And beneath the uncontrolled excitement to feed, there is just the slightest, most inconspicuous hint of fear — he cannot understand why I am drawing him away from the party. We cross through the wrought-iron gate of the courtyard and make our way into the woods. Outside, the night air is warm and heavy, and a red-orange glow lights a ring of live oaks. Here, the strange scent of smoke is stronger, too overpowering to ignore. Soren can't smell any traces of human blood beyond the ring, but he, like all the others, chalks it up to the influence of smoke.

"Maria wishes to thank you for your service," I say to him as I duck beneath an oak branch and walk into the center of the ring. A bonfire rages there, throwing shadows over my face. "She is grateful for the year that you have given to her."

Something in Soren's mind suddenly clicks, and he takes a step back, panic written clearly on his face. That small, inconspicuous hint of fear is now a raging wildfire, because he can read in my eyes and hear in my words that he is going to die.

He opens his mouth to cry out, but instead he drops his head and stumbles, too lethargic to move, run, or even scream. I stare into his frightened eyes as I kill him, and wonder if this isn't why Maria has kept me all these years — so that she could stay inside the mansion and dance like a whore, clean of ash and blood, away from this grisly hell of her own making.

The fear and hopelessness emanating from Soren Lykes as I tear his body apart is enough to make me want to run. Run, and never stop, not until I am a lifetime away, not until I can forget the heat of the flames and this bonfire stench of death. Not until I can obliterate the memory of the every war I've ever lived through, and the demon inside the mansion who impatiently waits to dance.

"_She isn't grateful," _Peter had always snapped at me afterwards. _"You know that."_

"I know," I say out loud, though Peter has been gone for five years now and I am here alone. But back then — back when Peter and I had shared this atrocious chore, I was never sure. The hold Maria had on me, once so powerful and all-consuming, has slowly disintegrated over the years, dismayed by her gluttonous ambition. Nothing is enough for Maria. Not Monterrey, not Reynosa, not Houston, not me, not anything.

With the smoky odor of death still clinging to my jacket, I make my way back through the cobblestone courtyard. My skin crawls at the sight of the yellow glow from the mansion windows — oddly filtered by a sheen of purple-grey smoke. When I reach the doors, I pause and bow my head. This is the hardest part, this moment, returning to the celebration as if I am not sickened by what I have just done. Maria will expect me to smile and dance with her, expect me to keep up a steady stream of conversation and wit, when all I want to do is lie down and die. I steel myself, reign in the misery, and throw the doors open. I walk in arrogantly, strongly, with my head high like I'm proud of the eleven bodies burning behind me.

The golden light and liveliness of the party is jarring after the bonfire hell outside. Everything overwhelms me — the music, the sycophantic laughter, the taste of excitement and lust in the air. I stare at Maria as she inclines her head at me. Her smile is stunning and full of lies as she laughs, dancing in a blood-red dress that makes her look like the devil.

"Jasper!" she exclaims merrily. "Come, come and dance with me." She is all exuberance and hard-edged beauty, and every eye in the room follows her as she throws her shoulders back and saunters across the floor.

She reaches out her hand for me.

With that simple motion, her lace-gloved hand extending toward mine, I am so inundated with disgust for her — for all of this, that I feel physically ill. It's all a game, all a play, some revolting tableau of death wrapped in velvet. I stare at Maria's flawless face, and hesitate long enough to feel a whip of veiled hatred come from her, long enough to see her red eyes flash in warning. Then I close my fingers around her ice-cold skin and smile — my placid, fake, southern gentleman smile.

"Ah, Maria, you are too lovely for words," I say, as if my hesitation was caused by awe, not revulsion. I lean down and kiss her on the lips; just once is all I can bear. Subtly, I send her a wave of composure as I place my hand on her waist. "Red suits you. That dress is absolutely decadent."

She laughs delightedly. "I'd have it no other way." Her voice drops as she nods after one of the human servants. "A gift, for you, my pet. They'll all be ours tonight. After the guests leave, after we're alone, we'll feed and make love until we exhaust ourselves. Like Reynosa, do you remember? An entire ballroom of blood... you and I on the staircase...."

"Mmmm," I purr_. Sadistic bitch_, I think.

"That will cheer you up, won't it?" She runs a freezing hand up my chest. "No more mood swings, no more arguments. Just you and I, the way it used to be." Her voice has taken on a slight edge, and I can feel the malice radiating from her like a black presence in the crowded room. "You haven't been feeding enough, you know; I can feel it in the way you hold me, the way you make love to me. You've lost your edge, your ferocity."

I spin her around in the dance, my face betraying nothing. She is planning to kill me, I can feel it. Tonight, perhaps, after the blood and the sex, after the sweet words that once meant everything and now mean nothing. Unless I prove myself somehow. Unless I can miraculously become enough to please the woman in my arms — this insatiable demon of ambition.

Unless I kill her first.

Steeling myself, I turn my gaze up to the glass ceiling of the atrium. I can see the shifting reflection of the dancers there, and the white of my own upturned face. I don't even recognize myself. There is no more Jasper Whitlock. He died the moment Maria sank her pretty teeth into my neck. There is only Maria's Jasper now. If I kill her tonight, I kill him too. And _then_ who will I be?

I freeze with Maria forgotten in my arms.

She stumbles when my lead fails; I hear the ungraceful clatter of her heels as she attempts to recover the motion. Angrily, she jerks at my shoulder with her nails outstretched and her jaw locked, trying to recapture my attention. But my eyes refuse to move from the reflection in the atrium glass, from the man I no longer know.

I am through with Maria, I realize this now. Through with this dance, and through with her.

Wordlessly, with my eyes still on the atrium above, I release Maria and turn away. We are in the middle of the dance floor, and everyone notices, and everyone hears the furious hiss that escapes from her lips.

"What is _wrong_ with you?" she demands, her voice low and threatening.

I almost turn back, because the guise of caring what she thinks has been my life for the past twenty-two years. Without the task of trying to please Maria, my world feels strangely pointless and uncertain. But anything — anything at all, would be better than this.

I stride across the marble dance floor, dodging through the couples and heading for the doors — the only spot of certainty in the whole mansion. I want nothing more than to be outside, under the open sky, away from every part of this ugly existence. Behind me, the hatred peeling off Maria is far more noticeable and far more malignant than it has ever been. I push through the doors with an air of finality, and they swing shut behind me with a shuddering bang. Inside, I hear the music fade to a dull murmur, background noise for the gossiping whispers. Confusion, murder, and savage elation follow me outside like fiends, and not even the fresh air or the sound of cicadas can drown them out.

I don't know where I'm going — my only thought is to put some distance between me and this hell, to get away from the traces of deceit and murder that linger like Maria's perfume. At first I don't notice the figure already waiting for me outside the courtyard gate. But when he speaks, his voice is as familiar as it is welcome.

"She always was a terrible dancer."

I freeze midstride and whip my head around. Peter is standing there, a half-smile on his face, arms akimbo. For a moment, I don't know what to say. It feels as though it's been five minutes, rather than five years since he left, and at the same time, so much has happened that he could have been gone forever. Strange, how I've been Maria's lover for decades, and yet the sight of Peter feels more like family than anything else I have ever known. His goodness, his genuineness, his strength... it clears the air around me in an instant. And even though _he_ was the one who left, suddenly _I_ feel like the long-lost brother, like the prodigal son welcomed home.

"You want to get out of here?" he asks.

Such a simple question for everything I feel. But he's already turning away, and I'm already following, without a moment of thought.

"Where to?" I ask.

"Doesn't matter," he calls over his shoulder. "Long as it's not here."


	2. The Stranger in the Mirror

**The Stranger in the Mirror**

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I awake alone.

In that first instant, that first split second of awareness, I can feel the past clinging to me like the remnant of a dream, like a scared child who refuses to let go of my hand. Then it fades, and I open my eyes, and I am terrified. The world is all black and silver — I lay in a shaft of moonlight on a hardwood floor, surrounded by shadows.

_Where am I? _is my first question, followed abruptly by the second, which pierces through me like an arrow: _Who am I?_

I can't answer either one.

I wrap my arms around my body, because it is the only thing solid and real — the only thing tactile that I can grasp and know. And I stay there like that, numb with fear, for so long that the moonlight shifts and starts to leave me in the dark.

There is a noise outside in the near distance, a quiet, insistent chirping. It registers in my mind as familiar, so I listen to it for awhile, until the name finally comes to me. A cricket. A cricket is chirping outside the window, a soft call of aliveness that brings sudden coherence to my own dead heart. Gently, I place a hand between my breasts, palm down, and feel for the soft thump-thump, thump-thump, thump-thump — a pulse of life which I do not remember, but inherently recognize as necessary.

There is nothing.

I gasp out a breath, and on the intake of air, I am assaulted by the overwhelming sensation of smell: outside is pine, mold, earth, and some terrifying mix of sweet spices and smoke. Inside, there is dust, candle wax, wood, and another scent — one that makes my throat burn like fire. My nose angles, and beneath me I find blood, covering the floor like a thick smear of paint. It is hard, black, and old. It is mine. I look at my hands and stretch my arms out, looking for a wound that may have caused such bleeding, but my skin is marble-white and flawless, untouched. Strength courses through my muscles. With new graceful agility, I lithely stand to my feet.

And from across the room, hidden in shadow, something moves.

I freeze with inhuman stillness, in a defensive, feral half-crouch. My eyes, only my eyes, slide to the far side of the room, where a young girl stares back at me. She has jagged black hair and bleached white skin, and she is crouched down as well. Her expression is a strange mix of dumbstruck horror and aggression. When I take a step forward, she does too, and when I hiss at her, her lips curl back into a silent grimace. My muscles tense in beneath my hardened skin, but she does not attack, and when I straighten my posture slightly, she does too.

The words feel uncomfortable in my burning throat. "Who are you?" I ask. _Who am I? _I think. She may have asked the same, but no sound comes from her lips.

We both relax our shoulders in the same movement. She is alone, like I am alone. Confused, like I am confused. Frightened, just as I am. Like the cricket, she is another echo of life, and I am struck with the sudden need to hold onto her, to make her stay with me, here in the dark.

We raise our hands in peace and walk toward each other, close enough for me to see the blood stains on the ugly grey gown she wears, close enough for me to see her eyes — glowing frightening, inhumanly red. This close, there are no traces of aggression on her blood-streaked face, only fear. Horrible, gnawing, breathtaking fear. Terror so real, so tangible, that the hairs on the back of my neck stand up just to see it. Ghostly white, my hand reaches out to touch hers, slowly, like a puppet being pulled up on a string. But instead of skin and warmth, my fingertips meet a smooth, glassy surface — an invisible wall that separates me from the frantic girl, the one whose red eyes are suddenly full of desperation.

_No._

I cry out in a raw-voiced scream, a sound so unbearably pained and inhuman that the words aren't even discernable. I slump against the mirror, my fingers clawing all the way down, until my knees hit the hardwood floor. The two red eyes burn into me like slivers of coal, hell trapped within the surface of the glass. Unhinged and screaming, I smash at the image with my fists. On the third hit the mirror cracks, and I am distorted into not two, but three, four, five, six, moonlit strangers.

The darkness reigns, the cricket outside falls silent, and I curl up in a ball. Alone.

***

We light a fire outside of Minneapolis, not because we need the warmth or the light, but because Charlotte likes the shape of the flames.

She and Peter build it on their own as I stand fifteen feet away, my fists clenched and my jaw held tight, my stomach hollow. The snapping sound of embers chills my skin, and the smell of smoke makes me mash my lips together in nausea. A bonfire built in a ring of live oaks. Autumn air sharply scented with smoke. The burst of flame, the haze of choking heat. I can suddenly hear screams in the peaceful silence, and feel the piercing of newborn teeth on my skin.

I walk away before I can help it, and my aversion so great that it's a wonder I don't send them running too. Only Peter notices my odd behavior, and only Peter understands the reason why. He glances at me when Charlotte's head is turned, then leans down to whisper in her ear. She nods, oblivious, and after a few seconds, Peter joins me.

"Sorry about that," he says with a shrug. "I didn't even think about it until I smelled the smoke." Peter's aura, normally relaxed and carefree, is tinged with guilt as he walks beside me. We don't like to bring up the old days, not even unintentionally; too many of those memories are colored by horror. He nods back to where Charlotte is adding an armful of wood to the flames. "If she knew that it bothered you, you know, she'd put it out right away."

"It doesn't matter," I say, and I almost mean it. The farther away from the fire I walk, the better I start to feel. I send a wave of relaxation toward Peter; the last thing I want is him feeling guilty about my ever-darkening mood.

"It's been years though, hasn't it?" he asks. "Thirty, at least."

"Thirty-five."

"Think you'll ever forget?"

I stop walking and look him square in the face. "Will _you_?"

He gives me a wry smile. "No, probably not."

Strange how unpleasant memories are often the ones that stick with us. While I can recall only vague snapshots of my human life, I can perfectly picture every spec of dust in the Monterrey mansion. I can remember the heat of flames against my face, and the bite that caused every single one of my scars. I can hear Maria's laugh clear as a bell. And I can still picture the way she smirked after feeding, fresh blood beaded on her lips. Forgetting is impossible. No matter what changes I make or what path I walk on, Maria always lingers in the background, an unspoken threat to my sanity and what little remains of my heart.

"Do you think she's still angry?" I ask, though I already know the answer. Dismally, I imagine her fury — the wild, murderous look in her eye that I had seen before Monterrey, before Nettie and Lucy.

"Who?" Peter asks, his eyes on the fire, and Charlotte.

"Maria."

He snorts. "Who cares? That harpy can choke on her own tongue, as far as I'm concerned." After a minute of silence, his eyes darken with some unspoken memory. "Do you know why she wanted to kill Charlotte? What her reason was?"

I think for a moment, recalling the exact words from Maria's list. "'Slow reflexes, poor judgment.'"

Peter laughs, but there's a hard, ugly edge to the sound. "She wanted to kill Charlotte because Charlotte was female. Female, and attracting males. You remember what it was like, how they treated her in there. Typical, isn't it? Maria and her jealousy. Maria and her _harem_," he spits out.

"Oh," I say awkwardly, unsure how to respond. Peter had spent much more time with the newborns than I. His job had been to make sure they survived their first year. Mine was to kill them after. But I knew that as the only female in their midst, Charlotte was preyed upon heavily. She had been much-abused during her first year of life. Civilized Peter was unable to resist the feelings of pity and protectiveness for the girl, and those feelings, over time, had evolved into love. Maria, who was unable to understand such things, considered Peter an over-sentimental moron, and Charlotte a manipulative whore.

Peter's energy changes then, and I can feel regret and uncertainty choking the air. He looks as though he wants to say something, but isn't sure that he should. I wait politely, pretending I don't feel all of these things, while he silently debates. Finally he clears his throat. "Was she— was Maria your... mate?" he asks timidly. "I always wanted to ask. I know you—"

"No."

He nods, looking relieved. "I guess you wouldn't have been able to leave anyway, if that were the case."

I shrug. I have little knowledge of mates and love. Sex, I know, and know well. Maria and I went through every facet of that. But when I think of what Peter did for Charlotte, when I remember his expression that night, and the unbearable flood of emotion that all but outshone the bonfire, I realize that this is a phenomenon I have never experienced. I was drawn to Maria because I had no other choice. Every single moment, from the instant her teeth pierced my neck, to the last dance, had all belonged to her. It was never love, despite her passionate whispers in bed, despite her fierce possessiveness of both my body and my time. I could be replaced in an instant, and on the rare occasions when I had disappointed her, I was.

There were no sweet memories between us. Only blood, violence, and control. And if that was love's true nature, then I wanted nothing of it.

"It's over now, anyway," I say, and whether I'm talking to Peter or myself, I'm not entirely sure.

He grins in response. "You bet it is. Hasn't found us yet, has she?" He claps a hand on my back and laughs. "I have to admit though, those first few years were a little nerve-wracking. It was bad enough when it was just Char and I, me always scanning the treeline, always bracing for the ambush. And then we had to go and steal her favorite pet — as if I weren't already paranoid enough."

I sniff humorlessly. "She'd never be able to find us anyway. Maria had the worst sense of smell I've ever seen in a vampire. She could barely track a human, let alone one of our kind."

"Let's hope it stays that way," Peter murmurs, looking over his shoulder at Charlotte's bonfire.

The air around surrounding him changes again, and when I look back I realize that we've wandered pretty far Charlotte. All this talk of Maria and armies has made Peter nervous, and he keeps turning his head back every few seconds as if to assure himself that Charlotte is still there. He doesn't like to be apart from her, not even for very short periods of time. This, I think, is less out of fervent devotion and more out of protectiveness. No matter how many years have passed, he is still the rescuer — the one who saved his love from death and fire that night in Monterrey.

"Go on," I say quietly. "I'm fine."

"You sure?"

"Of course. I'll see you and Charlotte in the morning."

Instead of leaving though, he presses his lips together, his face serious. "You know, Jasper... you don't have to be alone all the time. Not if you don't want to. Char and I always thought... well, we always thought it was Maria holding you back. But if you're free, what's stopping you?"

"Admirable pessimism?"

Peter frowns at my attempt of humor. He doesn't find it funny, and I know he sees right through my nonchalance. "It's not admirable, friend. It's sad. You think we don't notice your loneliness, but we do. More and more every day. I found Charlotte through luck, I admit. But if luck isn't enough for you, Jasper, you've got to make your own fate."

He runs before I can reply, leaving me alone in the dark. From a distance, alone, I watch as he meets Charlotte by the fire. She looks up and smiles like he's been gone for hours, saying something I can't hear that makes him laugh. He hovers around while she tends to camp, continuously touching her in small, unnecessary ways — picking invisible lint from her sleeve, tucking a nonexistent hair behind her ear, unconsciously placing a hand on the small of her back. He doesn't want to stop touching her or even let her out of his sight, and when I feel the gentle nudge of empathy coming from Charlotte, I realize she understands why. Not for the first time, I wonder at their love.

They have both seen the worst and lived through it, and this gives their togetherness a feeling of strength that cannot be reproduced through counterfeit arrogance. It is truly an equal partnership between the two of them; Peter often asks her for directions or for her opinions, but she is too passive to take advantage of his deference. Instead, she offers back an equal amount of trust and care, proving that while his world may revolve around taking care of her, hers revolves around trusting his strength. And she loves Peter every bit as much as he adores her — this is obvious enough in the way she looks at him and the way her gentle hand finds his, even when he's not expecting it.

In the first few years that I traveled with the two of them, I had trouble understanding their relationship. After Maria, I had acquired a deep mistrust of women, and I was often confused by Charlotte's moments of silence. I would constantly test the air around her, looking for signs of the deceit and manipulation that I had always felt around Maria. If Peter noticed, he politely didn't comment, but during my times of needless paranoia, he would often look at me with pity. It took a very long time before I was able to read Charlotte's quiet emotion accurately: contentment.

When they start to kiss by the fire, I turn away, feeling like a voyeur. There is a deer trail running through the trees, so I follow it until the glow of their fire disappears. It is impossibly quiet and peaceful in the wild tonight; nothing but the faint chirp of a cricket and the rustle of grass in the wind. When I reach an open hillside overlooking a valley, I turn, lie down on my back, and fold my arms behind my head.

Above me, the moon is full and brilliant, surrounded by a clutter of stars.

"_If you're free, what's stopping you?"_

I don't know contentment. I never have. Every moment since I can remember, I have been impatiently waiting for something. Waiting for what, I haven't the faintest idea. I only know I'm less of a man without it.

Peter said I had to make my own fate. Maybe that's true, I think as I lean my head back into the cool grass. Maybe I've wasted the past thirty-five years waiting, when I should have been chasing. But as I lie here alone, I realize that despite the amount of time I've been given to heal, I haven't yet. I'm not ready to love, and I'm not ready to be loved. My heart feels so darkened, so heavy with guilt and ugliness that I couldn't bear to open it to another. But still, when I think of the way Charlotte reaches for Peter's hand, I ache. I _am_ lonely, too lonely to stay this way. Eventually it would wound me just as deep and just as thoroughly as Maria had so long ago. Somehow, something has to change.

Lying there beneath the moon, where no one else can see, I quietly, almost secretly make a decision. I can't live life with an open heart, not yet. But maybe — maybe I can keep an open mind.

And then, like a whisper from fate, like it was meant to be caught in my waiting hands, a shooting star streaks across the sky.

***

In the blackness, I watch a falling star.

It is the only thing beautiful in this deep pit of questions and horror, the only thing in hours that makes me lift my head. Huddled on the floor beneath the window, I follow the light with unblinking eyes, and feel as though I am falling too. There is a strange twinge inside of me as I watch that star, a warmth that makes me feel alive, even though my heart lies dead in my chest. As if some great change has occurred. As if my pointless, lifeless, lonely existence suddenly has reason.

And then, as the white light disappears over the horizon, I see his face.

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**A/N:** I'm quite excited about this story. It's definitely not my first foray into fanfiction or writing, but it is my first time tackling Twilight. We just didn't get enough Alice and Jasper in the books, as far as I'm concerned. I'll update every week — I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I'll enjoy writing it. :)

Disclaimer: I think disclaimers are silly and useless. Therefore, I will use this space for some other devilish purpose...


	3. Run

**Run**

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My name is Alice.

I know this because it is the name he speaks in my vision. I cherish the way he says this small word, not only because of his smooth, warm voice, but because of the tender look in his eyes as he speaks. Beneath the vivid red of his irises, he is soulful and broken, but the way he looks at me, it is almost as if he believes I can heal him. His lips are full and smiling, his nose is straight, and his eyebrows are shades darker than his honey-colored hair — two dark slashes above the glittering red. His cheekbones are so high and smooth that they look like marble.

I see nothing more than his face, but I know he must have touched me, because I can almost feel the soft pressure of his thumb in the hollow beneath my ear, his fingers on the back of my neck.

"_Alice,"_ he says, nothing more.

But there is love there, love so strong that it makes me stand to my feet, even after I had vowed to lie on this cold floor forever. Love so strong that I walk to the door of the mirror room, uncertain of where I'm going or what I'm doing.

I only know that I have to find him, and that he isn't here.

This new word, _vision_, is familiar to me, as familiar as cricket, or love, or mirror. It is a part of me, like my fingers and my now-dead heart, like the soft black hair that doesn't quite cover my neck. I know that I see things, and that I always have — things that aren't there, but will be. Before the visions, there is a strange, light-headed emptying, like a pitcher pouring water into soil. And then the vision comes, and suddenly I'm not in my quiet body anymore. I am somewhere else entirely, experiencing every emotion, touch, and word of a picture that has yet to be painted.

I turn the handle of the door, and flinch at the grating sound it makes when I push it open. This awful room, with its shadows and its dusty smells, is not a place I like. It may have been where I awoke, but it is not where I will stay. Not when he's out there somewhere waiting for me. I open the door wide and, for the first time, view the world outside, with no barrier of glass between.

Violet light is seeping over the hills, a hazy background for tangles of trees and thickets. Birds chirp at each other quietly, in symphony with my cricket, as a light wind ruffles my hair and curls mist over the glinting grass. The smoke smell from the night has cleared, leaving behind the scent of black-eyed susans, persimmon, and dew. Stars are still scattered in the sky, but they fade as the light turns from violet to pink to gold. I stand in the doorway and watch it all, oddly comforted and awed by the this — by a world that seems so awake and alive.

I flex my feet and step down to the dirt, wondering at the prints I leave behind as I walk. They are small and perfect, so faint that I could have been a ghost. In the clearing before me, there is a pile of ashes and charred wood, an ugly burn mark that doesn't belong in this tranquil place. I feel inexplicable loss as I watch the morning breeze scatter the ashes, an ache for something I don't remember but at one time loved.

Around the circle of ashes, I am curious to find bare footprints like mine, only much larger. I crouch down to touch one and realize that someone else had been here, pacing around the ashes with quick, angry steps.

This new sign of life sinks into my stomach like a stone. Far from being soothed by the presence of another being, I am immediately, intrinsically afraid. My shoulders hunch and I bend all the way down to press my nose into the dirt, inhaling. A wild, sweet scent echoes back, and the smell whips at me like just-remembered nightmare. I feared this smell once. Memories of a cold touch and familiar terror slither past me, but I can't grasp them long enough to know what I fear. I straighten, and close my eyes, inhaling deeply at the cool morning air; I think the trace is gone until my head angles slightly south, and I catch another tendril of the scent. I turn, scan the horizon, and stagger back when I see them.

Two figures alight the edge of a distance precipice. One is male, and the other is a female with a mane of fiery hair. Though they are far away — too far away for me to make out their features, I can tell they are watching me, and I can tell they are dangerous.

I am running before I realize I am running. My legs move beneath me on instinct, and I fly through the woods faster than the light behind me, faster than any other creature has ever moved before. It is not a jerking gallop or sprint, but a perfectly smooth, seamless, run. Through the thickets, over fallen logs and leaves, across a green-tinged creek — it all rushes past me in a blur, a breathless, unimaginable blend of color and life. The strangers, the shadows, the mirror, and all the questions disappear behind me. I outrun the fear and the horror, and keep running still, even when I know it is safe to stop.

For minutes, for hours, the wind against my face is all I know; the lightness of my feet, the rush of sound in my ears It isn't until the treeline fades and I find myself in a sun-dappled meadow that I realize I love this.

I love to run.

I am running, and though I could never know, though I could never be certain, I imagine I am running toward him.

***

We head toward the Mississippi in the early morning, and find ourselves just outside of St. Louis. Peter sends Charlotte into town, and he and I run the bordering woods to catch any recent traces of our kind. On the east end, we pick up a scent, but it is too faint to be even any danger to us — they must have been here years ago.

We head back to the river and enter St. Louis by boat, under the guise of two traveling salesmen. The sun is mid-sky, but the heat is cut off by a thick layer of thunderheads, and the ground is puddled with rain. A fresh, wet scent is in the air, and it somehow exaggerates the smell of blood drifting off the humans. Peter and I walk through the darkening streets with pitch-black eyes, our fists clenched hard at our sides. The thirst is the least of my discomforts; though it is dreary and overcast, it is still daytime, and I have never been comfortable traveling during these hours. My shoulders hunch at the thought of the clouds parting, exposing my very non-human skin to the entire population of St. Louis. Peter though, is doggedly oblivious to my plight. He is following Charlotte's scent, and that is all he cares about.

We pass by a newly-built church, where some sort of service has just ended. Well-dressed humans stream out the door in chattering lines. And amidst the noise of laughter and gossip, a lone voice cries out.

"Peter!"

The rigid, restless aura around Peter fades in an instant, replaced with relief. Charlotte is walking towards us — just a little too fast to be normal, but the surrounding humans only smile at the sight of reconciliation. They might have been apart for years, the way she's smiling. She takes Peter's hand, and he kisses her right there in the street. I grit my teeth and have to stop myself from rolling my eyes. My mood is black today, and I want to snap at them to get a grip — it's only been a couple of hours. Instead, I stand by and patiently wait, keeping my face as imperceptible as possible.

It feels invasive of me to be here, witnessing their kiss and feeling their emotions as if they were my own. Sourly, I think of the times I had come back from battle, hollow-eyed and empty, to see Maria waiting for me at the gate. She would smirk rather than smile, a look of triumph rather than joy. There were no hugs and no heartfelt kisses, but that smirk of approval used to thrill me like nothing else; I knew I would have my pick of the humans that night, and that she would drag me to her bed in front of everyone, flaunting her favoritism. This moment between Charlotte and Peter feels much more than that, though. Much more than I have ever tasted.

They part their embrace out of politeness for me, but Peter wraps an arm around her shoulders as we turn to walk down the street.

"New dress?" he asks, eyeing the sweep of violet-blue fabric that swirls around her hips. I look over too, and realize that Charlotte has indeed changed since we saw her two hours ago. Her eyes have also lost their blackness, now shining ruby-red beneath her pale brows.

Peter rolls his eyes at me conspiratorially. "You are truly an anomaly, my love," he tells her. "A freak among your kind. You don't hunt by scent, you hunt by clothing. Whereas Jasper and I might look at a human and think, 'Mmmm, blood,' you probably think—"

"Mmmm, satin," she purrs, and they both laugh.

I give a half-smile of wry amusement. To the average passerby on the street, we could be three old friends talking about better times and old memories — not three thirsty vampires, one of which who had just murdered a woman and taken a dress off her dead body. I can feel the eyes of the humans on us, drawn to our beauty and the musical sound of Charlotte's laugh, but there is no trace of fear in their emotions. They are merely curious, and for some reason this makes me even more uncomfortable. For a moment, I feel I am back with Maria again, wearing a pleasant mask of politeness to veil the monster inside.

"Speaking of blood," I say, turning my head to follow a group of church women.

"Oh, right." Peter touches his throat as if just now remembering his own thirst. "Charlotte?"

"There's a train yard just east of here," she says, pointing. "Drunkards and whores, mostly. Nobody would be missed. The clouds are heading in that direction anyway."

Charlotte's talent, as I had learned years ago, is the ability to track rainstorms. We had traveled through much of the Midwest using this gift, following the cloud coverage as storms moved over the open plains. Maria had actually known about this talent when she scrawled Charlotte's name on the death list. But Maria was nothing but practical, and she had very little use for such a thing. She would never risk traveling during the day, not even under cloud cover.

"Drunkards and whores, drunkards and whores," Peter repeats in a sing-song voice, still silly and enthusiastic from the reunion with his mate. "The staple of our diet."

"Where are we headed after that?" I ask, falling into stride next to them. By now I've grown used to their nomadic lifestyle. Each city is just a resting point before the next.

"Charleston, West Virginia, I suppose," Peter says after a moment of thought. "Charlotte?"

"Yes, let's stop there for a couple of days. We can follow winter across the mountains and make it to Atlantic City in time for Christmas," she says, clapping her hands together.

We don't celebrate the holiday, at least not in the normal fashion, but Atlantic City is a yearly pilgrimage for Peter and Charlotte. It is where they spent their first Christmas after running away from Maria, and they use the day as marker for their anniversary. I usually stay separately from them on Christmas in order to give them some semblance of privacy. They have graciously shared their entire life with me; the least I can do is let them have a bit of alone time on their anniversary.

"Charleston it is, then," Peter agrees, and claps me on the back. "After the drunkards and whores, of course. No one likes to travel on an empty stomach. "

***

I am thirsty.

My throat burns, insatiable, a constant scream of pain. I don't how to calm it, I don't know how to make it go away, and with every step I take it increases tenfold. At first I try to outrun it, as I outran the fear, but nothing helps. This fire will consume me — the thirst feels like the only thing I've ever known. When I reach the shores of a thin river, I cup my hands and bring the water to my mouth in desperation, splashing it all over my face and my hair. But the feel of liquid moving down my throat only makes it worse. There is an odd, delicious scent in the air, one that I do not recognize but _want_.

I want it so badly that I could die. After the horror of waking and the joy of running, I discover something new that haunts my every second: the agony of thirst.

"What do I do?" I ask my nameless vision, the beautiful face who once said my name.

No one answers, and he does not appear. I fall to my knees in the water and try to drink once more, directly from the cool surface this time, swallowing desperate mouthful after desperate mouthful of water. Finally, when the fire is so hot that it feels like daggers in my throat, when I have inhaled so much water that I am choking, I stop. With water still dripping from my face, I curl into a ball and shudder, wondering if I will die now, if I will awake in another mirror room, alone again. I cry out in terror, a sound so loud that it startles birds from the trees.

An odd splash snaps my head up on instinct.

Directly across the water from me, almost fifty feet away, there is a man. He has dropped his fishing pole into the water, where he rests in a small wooden boat. He is staring at me, staring as if he cannot believe his eyes.

"Miss, are you alright?" he asks, and the wind catches his scent.

I am on my feet in an instant. Seconds later, I am thrashing through water. Before I even realize that I am swimming, I am climbing into his boat.

He scrambles back in horror at the sight of me, screaming so loudly that his voice cracks and dies. His eyes are wild, and his body goes ballistic, fighting against me, against the boat, against death. Acidic liquid floods my mouth, and I eye the pulse in his throat as if it is all I can see. _Thump-thump, thump-thump, thump-thump._ I fall on him with a snarl like a wildcat, and sink my teeth into the weak flesh of his neck. The blood spurts everywhere as the boat rocks back and forth — on my hands, on his face, down my throat. It is hot and thick, and everything I have ever craved. I tighten my grip and breathe in the iron scent, gulping down mouthful after mouthful until the man lays cold in my arms. Even then it is not enough; I lick my hands and his face and fall to the bottom of the boat where a half inch of scarlet liquid rocks beneath me.

An odd splash snaps my head up on instinct.

Directly across the water from me, almost fifty feet away, is the fisherman I just murdered. He has dropped his fishing pole into the water, where he rests in a small wooden boat. I stare at him in terror, water still dripping from my trembling mouth.

"Miss, are you alright?" he asks, and the wind catches his scent.

Still trembling, I scramble up the riverbank and bolt. The fear is greater than the thirst, and it chases me like a demon, running me until I can no longer taste the warm, delicious scent in the air. I realize at some point that what I had seen was a vision — a vision that did _not_ come true, but the intense violence of it haunts me, even when I am miles away. The blood, the man's horrified face, my animalistic snarl... it plays out again, and again, and again, until I shudder and collapse against a barren beech tree.

_What kind of a monster am I? _I think, recalling how I had hungrily licked the blood from my own hands. I look down at my skin as if to assure myself that it wasn't real. There is no blood on my hands, but they are dirty and covered with wet leaves. I wipe them off on the grey fabric that covers my body, and wrap my arms around my waist.

The thirst in my throat is for blood, I know this now. I drink blood. I kill people, and I drink their blood. I swallow hard at this new information, and if I could have cried, I would have. _No wonder I awoke alone_, I think wretchedly, clawing at my face. I am a monster. I am a monster who was probably thrown in that mirror room to die.

I should have stayed there, maybe, away from people, where it was safe. Because I know with utter certainty that I don't want to kill anyone, not ever. Not even for the warm, delicious taste that my throat is screaming for. I would rather die of this fire than see anyone else's frightened eyes as I sink my teeth into their throat. I nestle around in a bed of dry leaves and curl myself into a hollow between the tree roots. If I can't stop myself from drinking another human's blood, then I will simply stay here, by this tree, forever. Until the thirst consumes me.

Familiar light-headedness steals over me then, and I know a vision is coming.

The forest shimmers around me, and melts into the corner of a rich parlor, where a woman sits with her knees drawn up to her chest. The woman is so beautiful that it steals my breath, so beautiful that I know she can't possibly be real. She has long waves of caramel-colored hair, white porcelain skin, and eyes that shine like rubies. But her face is tortured, and she is huddled on the floor like a child, her gaze unseeing. Something terrible has just happened, and she is punishing herself, hating herself.

A man appears beside her out of thin air, and kneels over like a protective angel. His voice is so gentle it almost hurts_. "Esme, love, you can't do this to yourself."_

"_Why not?"_ she asks sharply, bitterly. And then her voice dies down to a faint, ghostly whisper_. "I killed a man, Carlisle. I killed him, and I liked it... I wanted it. I drank his blood like a monster."_ She turns her face away and buries it in the crook of her elbow.

"_You are not a monster."_ Tenderly, Carlisle turns her chin toward him. The look of love in his eyes is strangely mixed with something that resembles regret. _"And if you are, I have made you one. It was my choice. I just couldn't bear to let you go."_

The woman is silent for a very long time, and then her face softens. Slowly, she reaches for his hand and grips it like a lifeline — like the only steady thing she has left.

He threads his fingers through hers with a smile. _"You just awoke, Esme. Give it some time. The blood of animals is more than enough to satiate us, but in the beginning, it will be hard. There will be mistakes. All I can ask is that you try. Be strong, love, and I will be there with you. It will get better."_

The vision clears, and fades to the colorless forest before me.

Esme just awoke too. But Esme didn't wake alone. Carlisle was there with her. They are lovers. They are family. And somehow I know, from the tender way he holds her in this vision, that I was not meant to be on my own like this. Someone is supposed to be here with me in these moments of confusion, terror, and thirst. Did Esme feel the burning in her throat, too? Did she snarl and attack someone like an animal? Did she enjoy the blood as much as I did in my vision? I can see that she and Carlisle are like me. We have the same white skin and graceful movements, the same quick eyes.

My nameless angel, the one from my first vision, is also like us. I know this now, not only because of smooth marble of his skin, but the shade of his irises. They were red like Esme's, but brighter, much brighter — nothing like the amber of Carlisle's gentle gaze. I raise a hand to touch my own eyelids, and wonder at their color. In the mirror room, they had been red. I somehow feel that this burning thirst is a part of that, but I can't explain why. I only know that all four of us: Carlisle, Esme, my angel, and I, drink blood.

But Carlisle had told Esme that animals were more than enough. Animals, not people. No women, no children, no fishermen in boats.

I lift my head and survey the world around me. There are birds chirping in the trees, but they are small and don't smell like anything close to what I crave. An alligator, two alligators, are relatively close, but their hard, scaly skin repulses me. I stand to my feet and close my eyes the way I did outside the mirror room, when I saw the footprints in the ash. I can smell a lingering wisp of something like the fisherman in the boat, and though this immediately draws me, I force myself to turn my head.

Northeast, there is another scent, a very strong one, and though it is not as enticing, I have to believe it will be enough.

* * *

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**A/N:** Nice cameo, James and Victoria. Now, move along, move along— I want nothing more to do with you in this story. So... is it just me, or does the image of Alice attacking that poor guy in the boat make you laugh out loud? I mean, honestly, can you imagine? One minute you're minding your own business, just fishing the river, maybe even whistling or eating a sandwich... and then suddenly some bloodthirsty little girl is thrashing through the water and crawling into your boat, snarling. I think I'd probably cry like a four-year old.

Disclaimer: Today's inspirational message — "If at first you don't succeed, try, try again, and by the fourth failed attempt, it's probably best to give up and admit that you will never be a decent recreational kitten juggler."


	4. The Singer

**The Singer**

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I consume three deer before I am satiated. I hunt them with instinctual ability, lunging catlike and snarling as they dart past me through a shallow creek. At first, I am repulsed by this — not only by the violent motion of my body, but also the feel of dirty fur against my lips and the ripping sound the flesh makes when I tear at it. And then the blood slides down my throat, immediately cooling the fire, and I realize there is no other way. Better this — holding a dirty, tick-infested animal in my arms, than taking the life of another person.

The creek runs red beneath me, and I drag my three carcasses upwater and over the bank. Here, I find a clearing where the trees reveal open sky, and leave them for the carrion.

At night I stalk the herd northeast as they move to higher ground, and in the coming days I kill two more of them, easier, swifter than the first. When the land changes and the deer begin to run through a rocky valley edged by mountains, I kill the big cat that hunts them from above. My mind begins to feel sharper, stronger, and oddly full of life. Visions come to me often: snapshots of myself as I make a kill, flashes of white-tailed deer that run between the trees.

The light is already fading when I back away from the bloody mess of the cat, turning the woods around me a dead, steely grey. I turn away from the carcass, and as I brush the hair out of my eyes I realize that my arms are caked with vermillion and blood. Bits of fur and flesh are trapped beneath my nails, and my feet are so dirty that they're black. I find a creek, and search until I come to deeper water — a clear pool where leaves eddy in a circular current. I wash myself here meticulously, including the grey gown I've had on since I awoke. When I finish I am wet, but my skin shines likes polished alabaster, and I feel less like an animal and more like a girl.

Night falls somewhere in the middle of this, and I float on my back in the water, staring up at the star-brushed sky. I remember the night I awoke in the mirror room, and the shooting star that brought me my angel — however nameless and mysterious he may be. I want to see him again, but I don't know how these visions work or why they come to me. They are the future, I know, because of what happened with the fisherman by the river. But can I summon these visions? Can I search ahead and see him again, even as I float here in quiet nothingness?

I wonder if he knows that I am looking for him. I wonder if he's looking for me too. Have we met? Was that memory lost too, along with all the others? The questions swirl around me, tilting every which way with the current. I close my eyes and spread my arms out in the water, thinking of his beautiful face and the way he said my name. But even after a few minutes of waiting and trying, nothing happens. In a tree somewhere near me, an owl hoots softly, as if responding to my distress. I am alone in the wilderness, trapped in the present, with only a sky full of brightening stars for company.

I think for a moment, my fingers playing in the water, and realize that I'm going about this the wrong way. If the visions are of the future, then I should think of the future, not of the visions themselves. I had been concentrating on my angel alone, not the circumstances that surround him. My eyes flutter shut again, and this time I feel my body lighten and my head spin, everything emptying until I am no longer present in my own world.

At first I see nothing but white. It covers the ground and flies through the air, whips of colorlessness that float like long sheaths of lace. And then, moving like a shadow in the white, a figure becomes visible in the distance. I inhale sharply, desperately, when I see his face. He is running effortlessly though the white, his hair moving with the wind, eyes ruby eyes fixed on the horizon. He stops at a high crest near a lone spruce tree, and tilts his head up to stare at the view. His expression would have been unreadable were it not for the slight sideways pull of his mouth. Beyond him, white mountains loom against a red sky, so utterly massive that they all but block out the rising sun. Shining black rock and nestles of pine add texture to the perfect beauty, forming ridges and valleys that prove the depth and distance. The sun rises higher and begins to dye the snow an odd, translucent pink. It is so marvelously beautiful that I forget for a moment why I am even here.

And then a voice calls out, distorted by the wind. "Jasper!"

My angel turns, and I feel my heart twist. Jasper. His name is Jasper.

Another man is there, and a woman. They are both fair-haired and red-eyed, holding hands as they look out over the crest. The man grins. "Come on, Charlotte says the storm is raging over the Atlantic. If we get there in time for Christmas, we can watch the humans light the big tree."

The woman laughs. "The crowning point of Jasper's every year, I'm sure."

My angel gives a half smile. "Not even remotely."

His voice is so familiar, and yet so excitingly new. I love the gentle lift in tone at the end of the sentence, and the way his o's are slightly drawn out. He speaks quietly, despite the rushing wind, and though his face is nearly devoid of emotion, I can see something a bit like sadness in gaze. This almost imperceptible hint of melancholy fascinates me and makes me ache in a way I didn't even know was possible. How I long to reach for his white hand and hold it in mine, to ask him how he could be so sad in the face of such beauty.

And how, _how_ I long to hear him say my name again in that warm velvet voice. I would give anything to be there now. Anything at all.

The vision fades when he turns his back to keep running with the others.

I sit up in the water, overwhelmed. In the present, the night has deepened to midnight black and the moon is a silver orb in the sky. The darkness makes me suck in a hard breath — it is still night here. It was morning in the vision. With an odd leaping in my chest, I realize that Jasper hasn't made it to the mountains yet. It could be tomorrow, or it could be a week from now, or it could be a year, but in this moment right now, the only thing standing between him and me was time.

Thrilled and desperate, I scramble up the bank, flicking the water from my skin. In the tree above, the owl hoots again, annoyed at the sound of my splashing and footsteps, but I pay it no mind. Instead, I press a hand against my forehead and concentrate. In the vision, the sun was rising behind the mountains, and the mountains were to Jasper's right. If the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, that means Jasper and his friends were heading north. I stand on my tiptoes and try to look up over the trees. In the darkness, I can just barely see the white glow of mountains in the distance; I am in the foothills of a great range.

If I run, and keep running until I reach that snowy crest, there is a chance I could meet him there.

"Jasper," I say out loud. I love the sound of it — the whispery noise the syllables make together. It is a name just as quiet and intense as he is. Just as beautiful.

I take a step forward, and then pause, biting my lip. In all this I had never stopped to think of _his_ reaction. What if... what if I reached him and the vision was false? What if he doesn't want me after all? What if he takes one look at my lonely, love-starved face and turns away? There was a chance that he was happier without me, better off on his own. Maybe I began this journey on nothing more than a whim, an endless hunt, and that — the unfulfilled search, was my true punishment for this strange, monstrous thirst. The thought, the absolute loneliness of that possibility stabs me clear though.

He has to be real, and he has to love me, because if he isn't and if he doesn't, then my life outside the mirror room has no purpose. Without his presence to hold me down, I would simply float away and disappear into my strange future visions — a world of "not yet" and "maybe." Without the hope of love, I am lost.

I shudder, and then as if fate is handing me a gift, I grow light-headed again.

The very first vision I ever had comes back to me once more, and this time it is even clearer. There is Jasper's face, alight with love and tenderness, such adoration in his eyes that it steals my breath. I felt the brush of his thumb again, on the hollow beneath my ear, soft enough to be silk.

"_Alice,"_ he says, nothing more.

The vision fades, and I am left alone in the moonlight, with the memory his touch still lingering on my skin. I can hear his smooth voice echoing in my ears afterwards: Alice, Alice, Alice — like a bell. Certainty shoots through me like a livewire. There are many things left up to chance and fate, many things that have not yet been decided or set, but this one — this precious, crystal clear gift, is absolutely set in stone. _He'll want me_, I think. _He'll want me._

With the image of him still dancing before my eyes, I pick up my feet and run.

***

Unlike most of our kind, Peter and Charlotte prefer to be in constant motion. Even when not running, they are almost always moving, pacing, watching the clock. A few days in any one place is too much for them, especially Peter, and I can tell he is restless the three days we spend in Charleston.

We booked two rooms in a mid-grade hotel on the main street, using the money we stole from our last victims. It feels good to shower the dirt and rain from my body, and to simply rest in one place for longer than a night. I have traveled to nearly every major city in America with my friends, but I feel as if I have seen nothing. There is always the push to keep moving, keep running, keep hunting. And even though I know our kind doesn't tire, I start to feel as though I might be close to exhaustion. Hunting, especially, drags me down and darkens my mood. Peter and Charlotte insist this is because I don't feed often enough, but sometimes I feel such an aversion to it that I can't bring myself to join their hunt. At night while they hunt for new clothes, I break into the local library and make my way through the history section.

The third morning in Charleston brings exceptionally cloudy skies, but the rain is still trapped in the grey. Despite the threat of a downpour, the townsfolk assemble for what looks to be a holiday parade, with the starting point right beneath our hotel. Their festive mood has an instant positive effect on my own, and I can't help but smile a little. Christmas is a big deal for the humans; from late November all the way until the end of December, it is abnormally pleasant to be among them. Peter always refers to them as cattle, "stupid and easily spooked," but it's hard for me to view them like that when I can feel such apparent emotion. The spirit of generosity and love is a warm glow beneath my window, shot through with excitement.

My mood is still light when a knock sounds at my door. Peter and Charlotte enter, and bring with them their own fresh aura of happiness.

"Merry Christmas, Jasper," Charlotte says with a smile, holding up a vest and a pair of boots. "Well, early Christmas, anyway."

I take the clothing from her wordlessly, and wonder how many men she had to kill before she found one with my correct shoe size.

The black shroud of guilt returns, and I can barely work up the enthusiasm to smile. She means well, I know. Both of them do. And the last thing I want to do is hurt Charlotte's feelings, but sometimes their indifference pains me. Subtly, I tinge the air with pleasantness I gleaned from the festival below and hide my own despondency. "Thank you. I'm afraid I don't have a gift for either of you, though. Unless you'd like a lecture on 16th century court life in England."

Peter laughs and holds his hands up. "Please no. I haven't slept in almost fifty years, but if you start with that gibberish again, I might actually fall into a coma. We thought we'd watch the parade for a bit before we head out. You in?"

I shrug. Human activities hold very little entertainment for me, but again, it is something they enjoy, so I go along with it. I put on Charlotte's vest and boots, an experience honest pleasure at the happiness in her eyes as I do. There is a watch in the pocket of the vest, engraved with someone else's initials; I leave it on the nightstand behind me with a shaking hand. All three of us head down to check out of the hotel, looking freakishly beautiful in the room full of grungy travelers. Charlotte, especially, is drawing many prolonged stares, as most of the clientele are males. With her sapphire dress and white fur coat, she could easily pass for a Russian princess. Peter glares at the human men openly, and places a possessive hand on the small of her back.

I am still feeling the residual of his anger as we walk out on the street, so at first I do not notice his odd behavior. Charlotte does though, and the tenor of her voice alarms me.

"What's wrong?" she demands quickly. "Peter?"

I turn and freeze at the strange look in his eyes. Peter, who had always been the most civilized among us, suddenly shudders and rolls his head back in ecstasy, openly smelling the air. Uncontrolled bloodlust explodes out of his aura, so strong that I have to take a step back. It is wilder than anything I've ever felt from him. A low growl escapes his throat, loud enough that several people walking by stare.

"Do you... don't you smell that?" he asks, his eyes glassy.

I, too, had noticed a particularly delicious scent when we first walked out the doors. I can pinpoint it to a young girl, maybe sixteen, who is climbing into a horse-drawn carriage as part of the parade. A silver crown is perched on her dark hair, and a white sash runs from shoulder to waist. She is pretty, young, and fresh. But we are on a crowded sidewalk, and it is in the middle of the day. It is very public, and Peter is already attracting attention with his odd convulsions. "I do, but—"

"I have to have her."

I am taken aback by the urgency in his voice. He takes two quick steps, nearly trampling over an old man, and I realize that he is about to lunge after the girl. I grip him roughly by the arm and fill him with lethargy, not even bothering to be subtle about it. "Peter. Get a hold of yourself. She's in the middle of the street, for God's sake. Look at all these witnesses. And you just fed."

"It's a bad idea, honey," Charlotte agrees, gripping his cold hand.

The lethargy is not enough to quell the monster. He all but roars as he rips his arm away from me. "I have to have her!" he repeats through locked teeth, looking very much unlike himself. He rubs a hand at his throat, massaging the burn with clenched fingers. "Take care of Charlotte. I'll meet you behind the hotel in one hour."

He barrels forward before I can grab him again, but he doesn't charge the carriage as I had feared. Instead, he dashes through the crowd on the sidewalk heading east, and I realize that he is planning to ambush her at the parade's end. I follow him with my eyes until he slides into a thin alley and disappears into the shadows. I can feel that if I chased after him now, if I tried to hold him back, it would come to blows between us. He had surpassed some un-returnable point where logic and rules no longer held jurisdiction.

"Great."

"What do we do?" Charlotte asks, biting her lip.

I let out a breath and straighten my posture. The military strategist in me awakens after years of dormant rest, and I assess the situation coolly. "You wait behind the hotel as he asked. Hide the best you can. I'll stay here until he kills her and monitor the emotions of the crowd. Afterwards, we'll listen to hear where the manhunt is headed, and then we'll run."

"And the Volturi?" she asks, very quietly.

"Hopefully he'll be coherent enough to cover his tracks and make it look like a normal murder. We can't help him, not with this crowd out here."

Charlotte leaves and I wait, barely noticing the human scent around me as I keep my eyes peeled on Peter's dark alley. The parade passes by with cheers and music, and my mood is so focused on escape routes and backup plans that I am unintentionally spreading solemnity to the humans marching by. Had I not been so intent, I would have been amused to see their faces fall and then brighten again as they pass me.

Finally, the girl's carriage makes it to the end of the route, and Peter slides out of his alley unnoticed. I watch as he follows her surreptitiously from only a few feet behind, ignored by the other humans who gather around her with flowers. I can feel his bloodlust all the way from here; he will kill her within seconds. Abruptly, I turn and make my way to Charlotte, who stands stock-still near the back door of the hotel.

We stand together in silence for a long while, waiting. I imagine that Peter has killed the girl by now. I can feel subtle tinges of unease drifting back down the street. It might be that the other humans are already looking for her.

"It happened once with me too, you know," Charlotte speaks up, looking lost in memory. "Right after Peter and I escaped. I thought I had my newborn tendencies under control— I'd gone through all of Texas and New Mexico without incident. And then this man walks past me... and his scent." She shudders. "It was intoxicating. I couldn't concentrate, I could barely walk. I killed him right there in the street. There was only one witness, and Peter took care of her and hid both bodies while I ran."

I make no reply to this, and we both look up the soft sound of a footstep in the alley. Peter is running toward us, looking deeply shaken. He is covered in blood, and I doubt it is all the girl's. He would have had to kill more than one human in order to get to her.

"I'm sorry. Charlotte, Jasper, I'm so sorry."

Charlotte wraps her arms around his broken form, and he clings to her tiny body like a life preserver. I imagine that if our kind was able to cry, tears would be running down his cheeks. For a moment, I am touched by his grief. Then I realize that he isn't sorry he killed the girl, only that he has compromised Charlotte and me in the process. The unease from the street rises to a fever pitch, and then terror and erupts. Suspicion, outrage, vengeance. In the short span of just a few minutes, things grow very ugly on the other side of the hotel. Sirens begin, and voices escalate. All three of us listen intently, and I can feel the anxiety radiating from both Peter and Charlotte.

Calmly, I turn to them and speak in my military voice, solid as a rock. "We have two options. The authorities have blockaded the major roads. They're gathering bloodhounds to stake out the woods east of here and head into the mountains. Going back the way we've come would mean crossing through a crowd of very suspicious people— and we attract stares as it is, never mind Peter's bloody shirt. So it's either north to Columbus or south into the Appalachians."

"What do you recommend?" Peter asks, his face blank.

"South. They'll block the bridge but not the river. We can swim through in the dark, and when we hit the mountains, we'll have obvious advantages that they do not. If we go south far enough, we can backtrack and head up the mountains on the eastern side." I look at Charlotte. "If you still want to go to Atlantic City, that is."

"Yes. Of course," she says quickly.

Peter looks relieved at her words. "We won't make it there by Christmas," he adds, biting his lip.

But Charlotte leans her head against his chest and lets out a soft laugh. I can feel the love and empathy seeping out of her as she reaches for his hand. She loves him. Even when he fails, even when he's covered in blood, even when his own selfish actions have put her in danger.

"I'm with you, Peter," she tells him, "that's all that matters."

Later, as the three of us head for the river under cover of darkness, I think back on her simple words — and wonder why I've never felt more alone.

***

I am waiting.

I have been waiting since before sunrise, restlessly pacing back and forth across the snowy crest. This is the place from my vision. I recognize the view of the mountains, the curve of the hill, and the lone spruce tree. I came in from the south while it was still dark, and sometime before morning the snow had stopped, leaving behind a cold, ethereal stillness. The spruce stands at the center of a crossroads, west, east, and northern trails all lead into the white distance. The eastern trail is closest; it runs below me in a rocky series of dangerous-looking switchbacks and cliffs. West is a long sloping hill that leads to a city. I can see the buildings below me, and columns of smoke rising from chimneys.

In the vision, Jasper came from the western city. But he does not appear, and when the sun fully rises and hangs high in the white sky, I know that I am too early. Another day, perhaps. Tomorrow, or the next. I head for the shelter of the spruce tree and shake the snow off branches on the lee side. I sit down with my knees drawn up and lean against the bottom bows, breathing in the fresh green scent. The branches hold me like arms, soft needles tickling at my skin. _I can wait_, I think_. I can wait forever._

Minutes pass, perhaps hours, when I hear a strange sound from the west. Dogs are barking wildly, long anxious howls that make me feel instinctively on guard. I wait quietly in the spruce, bewildered, until the scent of blood finds me.

Like the fisherman in the boat, the smell tears into my throat raggedly, burning it from the inside out. Only it is stronger this time, much stronger, because it is not just one man and one heartbeat, but over a dozen. A wild snarl escapes me. I sit up from the spruce and walk out into the open, just in time to see a company of men emerge over the lip of the western hill. They are shouting directions at one another over the barking, pointing as they dash toward the crossroads with a map in hand. Their heartbeats are racing from adrenaline and the exertion of the climb. I can feel each pump of blood like a knife in my throat, can see each jugular pulsing beneath warm skin.

The dogs go ballistic at the sight of me — barking, howling, spewing saliva over the snow. But the men halt in their tracks and stare as if they've seen a ghost. I realize how strange I must look. No pants, no shoes, no coat, no hat. Just a thin grey cotton gown that whips around in the wind, and an animalistic expression.

"Miss?" one of them asks, completely puzzled. "What are you— what are you _doing_ out here?"

"Larry, the blood," another one of them says, pointing to the old bloodstains on my gown. The men murmur with something anger. They immediately spread out and eye the surrounding whiteness with suspicion, even as their dogs continue to strain at the leashes and bark at me so loudly that I have to clap my hands over my ears.

The one who had spoken first approaches me with his hands held up. "It's alright, Miss, we're not gonna hurt you. Are you alone?"

It flashes before me in an instant: a stationary image of blood and carnage that has my fingers curling in anticipation and my mouth soaking in foreign acid. I could drain them all — all thirteen — right now. The dogs would try to fight me off, but I could crack their spines with one hit, shake them off as easily as flies. I would kill this man first, the one who looks at me so kindly, because he is the closest and the weakest of the group. They would be too confused to fight me, too afraid to run. Even the mere thought of human blood moving down my throat makes me shudder.

"Miss?"

The other men are behind me now, circling east around the spruce, dragging the dogs behind them because they are still viciously howling in my direction. I know that if I stay there for even one more second, I will kill them all.

Without another thought, I turn north and run.

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**A/N:** This chapter stemmed from an odd little comment in Midnight Sun about Peter "not being known for his self-control." Both Peter and Charlotte are very fun to write, but there's a reason why Jasper eventually leaves them. Their lifestyle of nonchalant killing doesn't do much good for our favorite vampire's heart. In the next chapter, Jasper comes across something intriguing, and Alice gets another glimpse of the Cullens.

Disclaimer: Today's inspirational message – "You can lead a horse to water, but you can never repay it's gambling debts, which are now over $10,000, and somehow the mob is involved, and a dancer named Cherry, and you're pretty sure you're going to die in the next 24 hours, because they're hunting you down like a dog."


	5. Wrong Directions

**Wrong Directions**

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We run through a snow-filled forest for what seems like days, flashing through the maze of white and green trees like wraiths. The trees are so thick that even slight Charlotte has trouble fitting through. I automatically think that this would be a good place to hold a war. The lines of the trees would confuse any newborn, and our white skin would provide perfect camouflage under the cover of moonlight. Then I snap out the sickening trance of battle planning and feel cold all over, wondering if I'll ever realize that the "fight" is no longer my life.

We scale up the side of a steep hill and pour out onto an open expanse of snow. It is still falling in thick layers, dulling the roar of the wind with white silence. Ahead of us is the tall crest of an overlook and a lone spruce. At the crossroads, I break away from Peter and Charlotte dash west to the top of the hill. Down the slope I can see Charleston in the distance, thin trails of chimney smoke raising into the sky. It has probably snowed more than two feet in the past couple days, but the odd misshapenness of the trail below indicates that humans had come this way, tromping through the snow in search of us. They are gone now though; they probably returned to town when the storm became too difficult to navigate through.

East, the sun is a red glow rising behind an expanse of mountains. The falling snow, oddly, doesn't mute the beauty but increases it, spreading color and fragmented light through the rocky valley below. I am struck by the strength of the mountains and the force of the storm. It is certainly a more formidable environment than anything I've ever seen. I have never felt emotion from objects or places, but if I were to attempt to put a name to the sight of mountains and snow before me, it would be 'power.' Quiet, undeniable power. I can feel the wind whipping my jacket around, but the cold doesn't seep through, and it is still oddly silent here, despite the roaring in my ears.

Somehow the sight of the blazing sunrise fills me with an unnamed, aching loss. I have an acute sense that something is missing, something I'm not even sure I know yet.

I take in a deep breath of cold and pure air in my lungs — and then freeze.

A hint of something lingers in the air, something a thousand times beautiful than the scenery before me. It is a faint, delicate scent, our kind, coming from the spruce tree at the crossroads. Suddenly numb all over, I walk to the tree and circle it once, looking for tracks. The snow is too fresh though, too thick to see any signs of life. I kneel down on the leeside and inhale again, tracing the scent back to the lower bows just above the snow, where several needles are broken as if someone had rested here, away from the wind.

I break off a twig of spruce and hold it to my nose. Beneath the fresh green scent is another, stronger smell, embedded in the needles so subtly that it is hard to distinguish the two. The scent is familiar, and yet at the same time wildly _un_familiar. It triggers something inside of me that feels almost like a memory, but not quite. I inhale again, closing my eyes and cupping my hand over the spruce to keep the wind from dragging away the scent.

It smells like sunshine.

Holding that small twig in my hands, I feel on the edge of something, a great chasm of fear, uncertainty, and excitement. It is somehow more powerful than the mountains I just stood in awe of, and more urgent than the winter wind. And I think that if I let myself fall into it, that if I actually let myself contemplate what this feeling means, I will be swallowed up and lost forever.

"Jasper?" Peter's voice cuts through my thoughts, and by the look on his face, I would guess it isn't the first time he's called my name. Both he and Charlotte are at my side, their posture concerned. I didn't even hear them approach me from behind, which is very unlike me. Peter glances from me to the tree and back again. "What is it?"

"This... scent," I say numbly, still staring at the twig. "Can you not smell that?"

Peter quirks a brow. "Jasper, did you learn nothing from my moment of insanity back in Charleston? I don't want to have to run again like that. Not so soon."

"It isn't human. It's one of us."

Their expressions immediately change. I can feel a sudden whip of fear and unease coming from both. Though it's less of a threat in the northern states, none of us like are fond of running into our kind in the wild. We don't know who's friendly and who's not, and we've all seen the ultimate version of hostility. Charlotte stiffens and looks over her shoulder, and Peter's eyes scan the surrounding white, business-like and cool. "There aren't any cities nearby," he muses. "Nothing worth claiming as a territory anyway. Likely he was just passing through."'

"_She_," I correct automatically. "It's a female."

They both give me an odd look. "Do you... know her?" Charlotte finally asks, confused.

"No, but..." I trail off, finding it difficult to express what the scent makes me feel. Peter looks every bit as lost as I am, but Charlotte studies my face for awhile and then nods.

"Well, I'm no tracker," she says, looking around, "but my best guest would be that she headed east. And I'm not just saying that because I want to get to Atlantic City," she objects automatically, when she sees the look on my face. "We would've known if she'd gone south, right? We would have run into her. And I doubt she'd be heading north because there aren't any cities in that direction, not for a long while anyway. She'd have no source of blood. West of us is the mess we left in Charleston. I don't think anyone would head that way, but even if she did, Jasper, you know we can't go back."

"So... east."

"East. We can search for her trail on the way, and if we find it and you want to... investigate, feel free. You're not chained to us, you know," she says, smiling warmly at me. "Though I do like having you around."

"Okay." I am suddenly amendable to all of this.

I take the spruce twig and place it in the pocket of my jacket. I tell myself that this is so I can remember the scent while we track her, but I know I'll never forget it. The twig feels like a talisman in my pocket, like a tiny shard of happiness that I can carry with me wherever I go. I head east quickly, bounding down the rocky switchbacks with new speed. Unused to any sort of enthusiasm from me, the two follow warily in my wake. I can sense their bewilderment behind me, but for once I close off their emotions and concentrate solely on my own.

***

I run through the snow for almost two days before the vision hits me. It is not a moving vision this time, but a snapshot image: Jasper. I see him from behind this time, just the retreating figure of him and the two others. At first I delight only in the straight confidence of his posture and the broad outline of his shoulders. Then I notice the background of the picture. It is urban and very crowded, and they are surrounded by people, even though it is nearly night. They are walking past a sign that says "Welcome to Atlantic City" in broad, sweeping letters.

I stop dead in my tracks.

For the first time in days, I survey my surroundings. The men and their dogs are long gone, and I am alone on a flat snow-filled plain, out of the mountains. No matter which direction I look, I cannot see this city or anything that looks even remotely like it. There is a solid line of bare oaks, three separate square outlines of fences, and a field full of cows. Nestled against a low hill is a tiny cabin — the only sign of human life for miles. I spin around, biting my nail uncertainly. I've never heard of Atlantic City before. I don't know which direction it's in or how far away it is.

If I guess on the direction and take off running, I could miss Jasper. The sun was setting in the vision; here and now it is midday. If the vision takes place tonight, and I go in the wrong direction, I wouldn't have enough time to correct myself. I have to be certain this time.

I eye the cabin again. I can tell by the yellow windows and smoking chimney that it's occupied. I take in a deep breath, and can taste just the faintest hint of far away blood. My reactions to other people so have been... dangerous. But I don't know if I have any other choice. Asking for directions is my only chance of finding Jasper in time.

Determined, I start for the cabin. I run until I approach a broken down fence, and then walk quickly through the snowy field. There are bare spots of yellow-brown grass every now and then, and groups of cows huddle around these, watching me emotionlessly as I pass them by. Even at this distance, even under the stench of manure and hay, the scent of human blood is apparent. When my throat starts to burn like fire again and hot lashes sting with every swallow, I pause.

_How can this ever work?_ I ask myself, defeated. I live in a world full of other people — they are everywhere. Jasper and his friends are able to walk among them. I don't know if they interact, but I have seen now that they can at least stand to be in a crowd and not... kill anyone. What is wrong with me that I can't do this? I have to learn, I have to teach myself to control the thirst. If it comes down to something like this again — the choice either of missing Jasper or talking to another human, I need to be able to control myself.

I take another step toward the cabin, and am hit with a sudden lash of light-headedness. I try to keep walking, because this is not the time for another vision, but my legs are no longer able to move. Against my will, I can feel myself being poured out of the present and into the future.

Three people sit before me in hard, uncomfortable looking chairs. A harsh bell rings in the distance, and all three glance behind them at the clock. One is a boy with hair the color of a burnished penny, who reclines easily in the chair with an air of complacency. To his left is another boy, massively muscled, with an abundance of untamed curls. The third one is a girl, and even in my restless state, I find the sight of her jaw-dropping. If Esme from my first vision was beautiful, this girl is astounding. Everything about her, from her exquisite face to her long, curved body is perfect. For the first time, my attention is drawn to clothing, because the dress she wears is flawlessly cut and fitted, such a rich green fabric that it almost burns my eyes.

"_How long can it take to register us?"_ she hisses, and somehow I know that her temper is on par with her outrageous beauty. _"I am _so_ bored."_

The bronze-haired one sniffs. _"I'd tell you the boredom gets better... but I don't want to lie to Emmett on his first day."_

A door to the right of them opens then, and I am hit with familiarity and delight as Carlisle walks into the room. He is speaking to a rather plain woman with glasses, who chatters on about classes, curriculum, and the 'pride of the Vikings' while handing Carlisle three sheets of paper.

"_Finally,"_ the girl mutters, examining her already perfect nails.

The woman leaves and Carlisle closes the door behind her. He beams with such pride at the three in the chairs that even the bad-tempered girl's expression melts into a smile. I can see that Carlisle cares about these three, and that they love him in return. Like Esme, they are family. Anyone could tell that, and not just because they all share the same shade of amber-gold eyes and white skin. There is an undercurrent of physical and emotional closeness that makes them appear as one entity, rather than a room full of separate beings.

Carlisle claps a hand on the big one's shoulder and speaks in a quiet voice, _"You're certain you want to do this, Emmett? No second thoughts? No concerns?"_

He grins. _"Gee, dad. What'll I do if the big kids pick on me?"_

The girl tosses her glorious hair over one shoulder, and the bad temper is back. _"Like it would be a tragedy if your lunch money was stolen." _She speaks the word 'lunch' with heated disgust, and shudders a little.

"_Rosalie, dear, I know how you feel, but at least pretend to eat. The longer we keep up the charade, the longer we can stay, remember that,"_ Carlisle says to her gently, unaffected by her mood. He then immediately turns to Emmett with a stern expression_. "And that applies to gym class as well. No running, no jumping, no displays of strength."_

"_Then what's the _point_?"_ Emmett growls. There is a short moment of silence as he glowers at the rest of them, and then the bronze-haired one sighs.

"_Yes, Emmett, I'm in your gym class," _he says tiredly._ "And no, you won't be able to get away with it." _His head turns back to Carlisle as if the older man had spoken. He nods. _"Of course."_

"_What was that?"_ Emmett objects, pointing. _"What was that _right there_? Of course, what? What did you just agree to?"_

Rosalie threads her arm through his and talks in a soothing voice. _"Ignore him, baby. Edward's just being supercilious again."_ She shoots Edward a look of daggers and holds his gaze for a moment, as if communicating some silent thought.

Carlisle smiles upon their bickering with fatherly amusement and glances down at his watch. I notice for the first time that he is wearing a long white coat made of stiff cotton, and that **Dr. C. Cullen** is stitched in blue about the left breast. _"I'm at the hospital until late this evening, but Esme will pick you up. We can try the bus later in the week if it feels safe."_

"_Bye, Carlisle,"_ they all echo, waving as they depart the room. Rosalie, despite her display of wretched temper, pauses to kiss Carlisle's cheek before she leaves.

"_Don't worry, Dad," _she whispers so no one else can hear. _"I'll take care of him, too."_

The vision clears and I find myself lying face-down in the snow. One of the cows is nearby, snuffling at the dry grass beside me. I sit up and press the heel of my hand to my forehead; the vision has left me dizzy with information. First of all, Carlisle and Esme have three children: Emmett, Edward, and Rosalie. They do not live in the wilderness as I do, but attend school and interact with other people. Carlisle works at a hospital —a hospital— which would not only be full of other humans, but possibly full of other humans who are _bleeding_. And none of them are dirty and leaf-covered like I am; they are clean, well-dressed, and beautiful. I look down at my bare feet and the ugly grey gown, and realize that I need to make some changes if I'm going to fit in the way that they do.

But there isn't enough time. I can feel the urgency deep in my bones, screaming louder than the bloodlust. The sun is even lower now. I have to be in Atlantic City. I have to run, I have to get there, and I can't afford to choose the wrong direction this time. If I don't get there now, right now, I will miss Jasper. Again. It is that thought, and that thought alone, that gives me the courage to walk up the to the door of the little cabin. The scent of blood is stronger here than ever; an odd growling noise is gurgling in my throat, and mouth is suddenly watering. My knees are shaking, and I wrap my arms around myself tight as if to keep some semblance of control.

When I hit the dilapidated porch, the door opens and a woman steps out carrying a metal pail. We both stagger back at the sight of each other, and the pail drops from her hand with a clatter. I watch the expressions on her face change from shock to horror to concern. She raises her hand to her mouth and surveys my odd clothing, my dirty legs, and my frightened face. When she takes in my bare feet, still covered with traces of snow and dead leaves, she gasps.

"Sweet Jesus, honey, what's happened to you?"

I try to say something, but opening my mouth causes a flood of acidic liquid to pool on my tongue. Her face is two feet away from mine, and her every breath hits me like a punch in the stomach. I swallow the mouthful of acid, backing away as image after bloody image splashes against my eyeballs. Her ample body is warm and full of blood; I can smell it beneath the faint traces of flour and yeast, a delicious rusty scent that is ten times as powerful this close.

"My God, girl— don't just stand there!" When her plump hand grips onto my elbow and she gasps outright. "You're freezing!" She turns her head toward the back of the house. "Frank—!"

I convulse like an insane person, covering my nose and trying to breathe in through my mouth. I attempt to pry her hand away from me without breaking her fingers. "Atlantic c-city," I stutter. "P-please. Atlantic City."

The woman blinks at me, obviously confused. "Honey, you're in the wrong place. Atlantic City is miles from here. You're in Pennsylvania. _Frank_!" she shouts again. "Frank, get in here, and bring the extra blankets!"

"W-which way?" I ask, cringing away from her again, turning my head so I can't see the throbbing pulse in her neck. She tries to grab me by the shoulders, but I dance away, cowering against the porch railing and shielding myself with my arms.

"East, in New Jersey, but—"

She reaches for me again, but I am already gone, running through the field of cows, gulping out silent, wretched sobs. This is all wrong, all out of control. I have no idea where I am or what I'm doing. I can feel something wearing down on the edges of my mind, something black and frightening that brings me strange, fragmented memories of needles, cages, and straps across my chest. The terror, loneliness, and uncertainty of the mirror room are back again, stronger the further Jasper slips away from me. I head east, and run faster than I ever have before, hysterical.

I cling to the image of Jasper's face desperately, wild to be someplace solid and real with someone who understands. Someone who I don't feel fiendishly compelled to kill. With the threat of insanity clawing at my back, I realize that seeing him is no longer a hope, it's a necessity. He was the first thing I saw when I awoke, and he is the only thing chaining me to any sort of hope for normalcy and companionship. But the sun is sinking behind me already, and I have an awful feeling that I won't be able to make it in time, no matter how fast I run.

"Wait for me," I say out loud as I dash over the snow-covered hills. "Please, please wait for me."

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**A/N:** Poor Alice. That will probably be something I say a lot during these first chapters. The beginning of her vampire life is just so... sad. That changes, of course, as we all well know, and I'm excited to get to that part too. But she and Jasper have to go through a lot before they finally make it into each other's arms.

Disclaimer: Today's inspirational message – "There's no use crying over spilled milk. Unless you're stranded in a desert and that milk was your only remaining liquid. But even then, the crying may further dehydrate you exacerbate your thirst, so yeah, on the whole, crying is a bad idea."


	6. Edge of the Ocean

**Edge of the Ocean**

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The scent never picks up again, not even when the snow clears to reveal the dry yellow-brown grass of the lowlands. Without the scent to go by, I recall my military skills and track the earth, looking for signs of broken brush and compressions, for shining in the long blades of grass. There is no sign of anyone, not even humans — the trail is too steep and wild for even the hunters to navigate. It is a long, desolate walk, even with Peter and Charlotte at my side. If she came this way at all, she did it as a ghost, because not a trace of her exists. I find nothing in the woods or the plains, and nothing as we begin to approach civilization. The spruce twig in my pocket feels heavier and heavier with each step I take.

By the time we hit Atlantic City, my heart feels battered and unbearably disappointed. When Peter and Charlotte notice my silence, I'm able to pass my depression off as thirst, but after I drain a woman near the boardwalk, my mood is even blacker. Her fear and hopelessness sink into me like ink, and I can't get the image of her tear-filled eyes out of my head.

"_Please, he's waiting for me! He's waiting for me!" _she had sobbed over and over again. I kill her quicker than most, and back away from the body without even disposing of it.

I huddle on an abandoned fire escape for a long while, hating myself, before leaving to meet Peter and Charlotte again on the boardwalk. They are easy to spot among the night crowd, both inhumanely beautiful and impeccably dressed — Charlotte with the addition of a fox stole around her delicate shoulders. They look like any young rich couple in love, walking with their heads bent together, chuckling at some private joke. Peter spots me first, and guides Charlotte over to me without hesitation.

"Better?" he asks, tilting his head to assess my appearance.

I nod, and fill the air with confidence, as if didn't just murder a woman in a grungy alleyway. As if I can't still hear her pleas for mercy ringing in my ears. The foreign blood thriving in my veins feels like poison. And on top of that, miserably, the one thing that had given me any sort of happiness in years turned out to be a dead end. I put an unconscious hand on the pocket of my jacket and feel my stomach sink with disappointment again.

"I'm sorry you didn't find your mystery woman," Charlotte says softly, as if reading my mind. She, more than Peter, seems to empathize with this strange, inexplicable compulsion. "I shouldn't have led you east. I'm sorry."

"It's fine," I say with a shrug. "Not a big deal." What's one more crushing blow to my already decimated psyche?

Peter waves a cavalier hand. "We should be spending our time trying to _avoid_ our kind anyway. Going out of our way to _look_ for another vampire seems irresponsible. We don't know if she's part of a coven or if they're territorial... And if they catch onto our tracking, they might feel threatened and get defensive. A lot of things to consider."

Peter's logical evaluation stings — provoking my depression into full-blown misery. "Like I said, it's fine," I say, and mute the edge in my voice with a wave of calm. "I was curious, that's all. But we lost the trail, so it doesn't matter."

I can tell that Peter accepts this readily. It _is_ his anniversary after all, and I can feel his eagerness to be alone with Charlotte. She, however, sees right through me. Her eyes narrow in thought she weighs the importance of keeping an eye on me against the importance of having a romantic anniversary with her mate. I can see that Peter wins out, but she invites me anyway, trying mightily to sound sincere.

"Peter and I found a house right on the beach," she says, pointing to a dark overlook. "The humans appeared to be on vacation, so I doubt anyone's going to come looking for them. It'll be safe to stay for at least a few days. You're... welcome to stay with us, of course. We'd like you to stay."

I smirk when Peter raises an eyebrow at her generous use of the word "we."

"No, ma'am. You two enjoy your anniversary," I say, and very nearly laugh at the look of relief on Peter's face. "I'll head up the coast a bit and find somewhere else to stay."

"Char and I thought we'd go to New York after this. It's a little crowded this time of year, but that big party they have in Times Square is perfect for hunting. We'll blend in better there, and no one's going to notice a few people missing," he says, as easily as if he's talking about a weekend barbecue. "Meet us there? We'd probably stay at the usual place."

"Of course," I say with little enthusiasm. "I'll see you there."

The two of them leave for their stolen vacation house, and I watch their retreating backs until they disappear into the night. Horrible loneliness swallows me up the second they're gone, and I walk off the boardwalk to get away from the sound of human voices. Any one of the well-dressed men strolling over the wooden planks could be him — the man waiting for a woman who would never show.

I follow a sandy path over the dunes and stride out to the empty moonlit beach. It is shades colder out here, freezing almost, and starting to rain. Any human with good sense would head for shelter at the sight of the peaking waves.

The clouds roll in and blot out the moon as I head for the water, changing the scenery around me from silver to black. Not even my sensitive eyes can tell the sky from the sea, except for the foamy bits of white as the waves crest. I sit there at the water's edge and take the spruce twig out of my pocket. Masochistically torturing myself, I bring it to my nose and inhale again, closing my eyes.

It was a nice thought, an interesting dream. But I should have known better than that.

These things don't happen, not in my world. I'd thought long ago that walking away from Maria would make me into less of a monster. It didn't. It only took away the punishment the monster inside of me deserved. Any disappointment I felt now was fitting. Justice, at its best.

When another wave moves in close to me, I hold my arm out and dangle the twig over the water, preparing to drop it. I want to let the current take it away from me, to pull the dream so far out to sea that I won't ever be able to reach it. My fingers refuse to move though, and even as I tell myself to let go of the dream, I somehow cling to it tighter.

By the next morning, I am on my way to New York, the dream still in my pocket, the heaviness still in my heart.

***

I find the ocean on a flat grey morning, just after the sun loses its glow and turns white in a cloud-filtered sky.

The rain is an angry patter against my cheeks, matting down my hair and soaking the gown to my body. But still I keep walking, over the puddled boardwalk and onto the muddy sand, across the dunes and onto the deserted beach. I walk straight into the water itself, pausing only once as it floods out and soaks my feet and ankles. I trudge through until I'm up to my knees, in the middle of a storm, waves crashing around my solid form like I'm a rock, a stone they will eventually carve into and change.

There, I stop.

I didn't make it. I didn't find him. It didn't happen.

_He didn't wait for me_, is my last thought, a traitorous whisper that makes me hold the back of my hand to my mouth. My eyes blink furiously against the salt, and a piercing pain strikes me right through the middle, closing up my throat. It doesn't matter then that Jasper didn't _know_ to wait for me, or that he may not even know who I am. All I can comprehend is that I'm here and he isn't. Not anymore.

The water swirls around me like ice, and I can feel the sand being dragged from beneath my feet with every receding wave. I look out over the horizon, where grey curls into grey, foaming up and crashing with resounding booms. Thunderheads are rolling in fast and black, boiling with muted flashes of electricity. And one lone bird is flying through the rain, wings outstretched as it strains against the wind, helplessly small and insignificant.

I put my head in my hands and shiver with loneliness.

***

Two minutes after confetti and midnight, the humans begin singing Auld Lang Syne.

Couples embrace beneath the hotel window, some laughing, some tenderly kissing, all aglow with happiness and light. All except for one man, who is probably still searching through the crowd for the girl with light brown hair and red cheeks. Maybe they were supposed to meet at midnight, surrounded by singing and laughter, caught up in a rain of colored paper as they spotted each other across the crowd. Maybe he loves her and has a ring in his pocket, or maybe tonight would have been their first kiss. But none of these things will happen, not now. Because the girl he's looking for is dead in the alley across the street, and I'm the one who killed her.

"_I was supposed to meet him," _she had rasped out through gurgling sobs_. "It was supposed to happen tonight."_

My mood is blacker than ever, a physical swarm of guilt and misery. The old thoughts and memories surface out of the mire. Bonfires, battles, Maria. I imagine a pile of bodies, both human and our kind, rising taller than the skyscraping buildings outside the window. I think of the dreams I've ruined and the hopes I've killed, and I laugh bitterly when I realize I've never had dreams or hopes of my own. Everything feels suddenly pointless. All of it: the hunting, the endless traveling, the scent on a spruce twig I was never able to find.

I am angry at myself for that now, hating myself for it. What made me think I had any right to even consider finding someone else? After all the lives I had taken and all the loves stories I had ended, I deserved nothing short of hell and disappointment. Hoping for anything more than that was twisted, blatant selfishness; the kind of gluttony that would have made Maria proud. I didn't deserve to touch someone who smelled like sunshine; I never had and I never would. I deserved to be thrown in a pit to die.

A noise down the hallway lifts my head, and I know it is Peter and Charlotte, coming back to the room. Their spirits are high and Peter is singing, probably spinning Charlotte around in a dance. I know that in two seconds they will walk in here and find me on the floor with my back to the wall, disheveled and unhappy. It will ruin their night and stamp out their joy, and logically I know I should stand up and straighten out my emotions before they see me in such a state. But I'm too morose to move or even speak.

"—old acquaintance be for-got, and ne-ver brought to mind—" Peter sings as he throws the door open, his back to me. He is wheeling Charlotte around as I predicted, and they are both wearing paper hats and new, spotless clothes.

Charlotte sees me first, and the smile slides off her face in an instant. "Jasper."

Peter cuts off mid-verse at the tone of her voice, and then his smile fades too. For a moment they both stand there in the doorway, awkwardly taking in my lifeless posture and blank expression. Then Charlotte bites her lip and Peter shakes his head, and every bit of their joy is smothered by my melancholy.

"Not again," Peter mutters, more to himself than me. The energy surrounding him is pity rather than annoyance. "Jasper, this just isn't natural."

I look away.

"Char, would you mind leaving us alone for a bit?" Peter asks. "We need a man-to-man moment."

Charlotte kisses him on the cheek before she leaves, and for some reason that simple action triples my self-loathing and depression. I close my eyes and dig my hands through my hair, flinching slightly when I feel Peter sit down beside me. He stays quiet for a long moment, probably debating my sanity. Then he sighs.

"You _are_ draining them completely, right? You're not still thirsty afterwards?"

The question sparks a vicious whip of hatred, and I snap my head up to glare. "Would you like me to go over my technique with you?" I say acidly. "Play it back for you bit by wretched bit? Of _course_ I drain them completely. I'm not able to stop until I do."

"Maybe your appetite is stronger than ours for some reason," he muses, unmoved by my anger. He folds his arms philosophically and taps his fingers in rhythm as he thinks out loud. "It could be that one human isn't enough to fully satiate you. Maybe you leave feeling empty and depressed because you haven't actually fed enough."

"You don't get it!" I snap. "It's not that I need to feed more— feeding is the problem. _Killing_ is the problem."

A full five seconds pass as Peter stares at me. "Killing... the humans?" he finally clarifies, utterly bewildered.

I nod slowly. "It just doesn't seem... right."

Another long silence hangs between us. Peter is staring at me like I'm flat out crazy, and I can tell he has no idea what to say. He presses his lips together in concentration, then gets up and goes to the window, yanking me up along with him. He climbs out onto the fire escape and motions for me to follow. Begrudgingly, almost insolently, I do. We are facing an alley now, much like the alley I killed the girl in — rows of trash cans, a few clotheslines, and a stack of broken boxes.

"Okay," Peter says, clearly excited about his upcoming metaphor. "You see that cat? The one on the trashcan over there? What do you think would happen if that cat decided to stay indoors and eat tuna fish for the rest of its life?"

"I don't know," I snap uncooperatively. "More cat naps? Cleaner fur?"

"Come on, Jasper. Work with me here," he says, rolling his eyes. "If the cat goes, the rats have free reign of the alley. They can roam wherever they want, eat garbage, make rat babies... Word gets out and more rats come, because they know there aren't any cats here. And they eat garbage, and the rat babies they make eat garbage, and the rat babies of the rat babies eat the garbage too. Before you know it, the alley is so overflowing with rats that there could never be enough garbage to feed them all. And what happens then? They die, Jasper. The rats die."

"That doesn't even make sense."

He shakes his head as if I'm incapable of understanding, and points at the tabby on the trashcan again. "You're the cat, see? You're the natural predator."

"I get it," I snarl, unwilling to listen to further enumeration of his awful metaphor. "It's just got nothing to do with me. The cat doesn't feel horror and pain emanating from every rat that it kills. I do. I feel that, Peter. Every. Single. Time."

There is a short silence, and Peter rests his elbows on the railing of the fire escape. I can tell that I somehow finally got through to him. His shoulders fall slightly and hopelessness seeps out of him. His voice is sad when he finally speaks again. "So, what are you going to do then? Starve yourself?"

If starvation was even possible for our kind, maybe. Death seems like he most hopeful possibly for me at the moment, but I can't bring myself to say this to Peter. He would overreact and end up feeling even worse than he already did. I shrug instead. "I don't know. I just wish there was some other way."

Peter snorts, looking down in memory. "Charlotte and I met another coven once in... Alaska, I think it was. They were trying to live off the blood of animals."

I stare at him, appalled. "Animals?"

He grins. "I know, right? I bet Char they wouldn't last a month. You see, you can try to starve yourself or eat pigeons or anything else you can come up with, but it's just not going to work. You need to accept that. This is just the way that it is, Jasper. This our life. We are vampires, and vampires feed on humans."

I watch as the tabby lightly jumps off the trash can and saunters down the alley. "Don't you... don't you wish you didn't have to, though?"

"There are days when I wish that Maria had never bitten me," Peter says, rubbing an absent hand along the scars at his jaw. "There are a lot of bad residual effects from my life with her. A lot of memories I'd rather not live with. But if she hadn't bitten me, then I wouldn't have met Charlotte. So, no. No regrets."

"But if you and Charlotte could survive without having to kill humans—"

"We can't," he interrupts sharply. For the first time he glares at me with a bit of fire in his eyes, and I can see that I've entered into overprotective territory. "There's no point in even discussing that. I'm not going to let my mate starve to death just because I feel bad about killing some fragile little human. I love her. I want her to be strong and healthy. And if humans have to die in order for that to happen, then so be it."

I sniff humorlessly. "Rats in an alley. That's how you see them."

His face softens a little. Pity swells up around me again, and I can tell that he thinks I'm a bit crazy, even if he's not saying it out loud. "They'd die anyway, Jasper," he says quietly. "They die by the thousands every day. Shootings, car crashes, disease, old age... Humans aren't meant to be a permanent species like we are. They have expiration dates."

For a long time I don't say anything. I look down at my feet, and cringe when I hear a clattering and a hiss in the alley below. Something has to change. I have to change. I'm no better off here than I was with Maria.

"I just don't know if I can do it anymore, Peter. I think I need to go off on my own for awhile."

"And starve?" he asks quietly, looking deeply saddened.

"Maybe."

He frowns. "Jasper—"

But the decision has already been made, and we both know it. "You and Charlotte have been good to me. Better than I deserve. But I need to think about this, alone."

"Will you come back?" he asks, sounding a little like a child, like someone about to lose a brother and a dear friend. Charlotte may be the one he can't live without, but in a very different way, he needs me too. We lived through something terrible in Maria's service, and the bond of that runs deeper than either of us cares to casually acknowledge. Automatically, I send him a wave of calm, and the sardonic lift of his mouth tells me he knows.

"I won't be a stranger," I tell him gently. "I'll run into you from time to time out there. And I'll always know where to find you every year at Christmas, right? I just need... I need..."

Peter nods. "I understand," he says, and I believe he somehow does.

There's nothing for me to pack and nothing left for me to say. We're at a different kind of crossroads this time, and neither of us knows for sure what's going to happen. With a grim smile, I climb over the railing of the fire escape. I realize that I'm walking away from the only people who have ever really given a damn about me, and almost laugh at the irony of it all. I land the twenty-foot jump silently, and rise up to see Peter watching me from above, arms akimbo, eyes sad.

"Tell Charlotte goodbye for me?" I ask.

"Of course," he says with a half smile. "And Jasper?"

I turn.

"Take care."

* * *

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.

.

**A/N:** Well, wasn't that just a great big bag of angst? Not much Alice in this chapter, but that shall be remedied in the next. And... reviews would be lovely, oh incognito readers. I know you're out there! Even constructive criticism would rock my world.

Disclaimer: Today's inspirational message – "Don't count your chickens before they hatch. Because one of them might be a platypus, and they are vicious, bloodthirsty creatures with a vendetta against the human race for all the years we've mocked and belittled them. Plus, despite popular claim, they really taste nothing like chicken."


	7. Chasing Birds

**Chasing Birds**

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For the next year, I follow him in visions.

After New York City, it gets harder. He is no longer with his two companions, and somehow this makes it more difficult for me to see. The visions I _do_ get are frustrating and difficult to interpret. Jasper, in an abandoned building. Jasper, in an alley at night. Jasper, sitting at the edge of a cave, watching rain drip off the rocks. There are no clues as to _where_ he is; no city signs and no spoken words. Just stillness and silence. I no longer see him in motion as I did before and somehow get the impression that he is listlessly drifting, not intently moving from place to place the way he did with his friends. He only wanders now, alone, with a blank, expressionless face that frightens me.

His eyes are often black instead of red in these times, and the shadows under his eyes are so dark that they look like smudges of ink. I find it interesting that this is the only time his expression carries any sort of life; when his eyes are glinting with burgundy fire, he looks like nothing more than a shell, a dead thing. I've never seen him smile, and I've never heard him laugh. He is solemn, broken, and trapped in some sort of despair that I cannot understand.

But I follow him anyway, and the more dejected he appears, the more desperate I am to find him.

I steal for the first time in Atlantic City — because the looks people give me on the boardwalk make me feel like more of a freak than I already am. Just a pair of pants and a shirt, from a clothesline in an alley, so small that they must have belonged to a little boy. The grey gown, I keep, and never stop to ask myself why. I curl up on it sometimes at night, and drape it around my shoulders like a blanket when it rains.

I steal for the second time halfway up the Jersey coast, lifting a coffee-stained map from a man's back pocket as he heads into a gas station. I study the worn paper for a long time beneath an underpass, turning it and tilting my head as I scrutinize the state lines and Canadian border. By the time I leave the map on the roadside, I have an image of the United States perfectly imprinted in my mind.

I close my eyes every once and awhile and imagine a long red line tracing Jasper's route over the highways, mountains, and plains. New York, Albany, Harrisburg, Buffalo, Toronto, Cleveland, Detroit, Chicago, Frankfort, Lansing, Ottawa; it is erratic, a journey with no pattern or purpose. From day one, it's nothing but logic and guesswork, and my guesses aren't good. Just when I think I have figured out what will come next, he backtracks or ambles off somewhere completely different. I am always one step behind, missing him by days, by hours, sometimes even by minutes. Sometimes there are gaps in the visions, and I miss him entirely, only to find that I am running even further behind.

I steal for the third time in Albany, because my feet are so dirty that that people are starting to stare. With my sheared-off hair, short stature, boys clothes, and little boots, I easily pass for a street urchin. Most humans steer clear of me, but some drop shiny coins at my feet or offer me food. It is during these times when I feel guiltiest about this terrible thirst. These kind people do not deserve the snarls and murderous stares I give them in return, nor do they deserve to be the subjects of my violent visions.

At times, even the faintest hint of human blood makes me uncontrollable. The big cities are the worst; I am surrounded on all sides by fragrant humans, and there are no animals to relieve the burning in my throat — only the smallest of rodents and birds.

I see Carlisle and his family from time to time in my head. The visions come unsolicited, some sharper than others, each teaching me something new about the family, the world, or myself. I finally learn the word for what I am: vampire. This makes very little sense to me, and even less sense when I discover that I can no longer refer to myself as "human." I am utterly different from other people, so different that I no longer qualify as one of them. I am disgusted to learn that the acid flooding my mouth is venom, and that the reason for my icy skin is that I have no blood. I am saddened to learn that I'm not supposed to go outside in the sun, and that I can't run where anyone can see.

Every day is a new wonder and a new discovery. I love to watch the humans as they interact with one another and pass me on the street. The men are often somber-suited and grim, with hats pulled down low and rolled papers clutched in their hands, but the women are as colorful as peacocks. They parade up and down the streets constantly, slim columns of jewel-colored fabrics with bronze buttons and feathered hats. Their extravagance makes me look down at my dirty boy clothes in shame.

I long to live like Carlisle and his family. Dressed in pretty clothes — a clean, happy, normal girl, instead of the blood-crazed, filthy mess that I am. I begin to emulate their words and their gestures, and mimic the human behavior that I see around me. It doesn't always work. I still get odd looks when I run too fast, speak too fast, or lift things that a small girl shouldn't be able to lift. But I learn new tricks and new excuses every day, and somehow fitting in gets easier.

Almost a year after waking, I have my first real human interaction.

I pass through Vermont on my way to Trenton, and find myself enchanted by the quiet autumn beauty. Red and orange leaves shake in silver-trunked trees beneath a grey sky that never rains, and the grass is emerald and wet with frost. After draining two deer in the nearby hills, I nervously sit down on a bench with a woman who is feeding ducks. My vision, when it comes, is free of blood and gore — just two women sitting on a park bench together on a cloudy afternoon. I feel peace for perhaps the first time ever then, a foreign feeling of liquid calm that settles somewhere in my chest.

"Hello," I say slowly.

The woman turns to look at me, and she is quiet long enough that my stomach clenches in fear, wondering if I've done something wrong. But her gaze on me is appraising, not critical, and finally she nods at me with a smile. I smile back. Her eyes soften at my grin, and I see that they are a quiet blue, set in a broad, honest face. The pinned hair behind her head is curled and greying, and there are wrinkles at the corners of her eyes when she smiles. She looks nothing like the flashy, well-dressed ladies of the city, and yet I am drawn to her just the same.

She gestures toward the ducks with a casual hand. "Beautiful, aren't they? I'm always sad when they fly South."

I am quiet for a moment, pondering her words. "Because you can't find them?" I finally ask. I know that feeling all too well.

She chuckles and tosses another handful of bread into the pond. "It's no use chasing after birds, honey. They'll show up eventually on their own. They always do."

A cold wind picks up and the scent of her blood moves toward me. I cringe and then snap my mouth shut, remembering that it helps not to breathe. If the woman notices my odd behavior and sudden silence, she says nothing of it. She only offers me a piece of bread. I take it with shaking hands, and when I see how she tears it into small chunks for the ducks, I do too. I toss my pieces out to the pond and watch as the ducks float after them, their little orange legs peddling beneath the surface. I laugh delightedly when one dives under and comes back up shivering, shaking the water from its feathers.

"A tiny little thing like you shouldn't be out in this weather," the woman says, and I turn to find her looking at my tattered clothes. My shirt is short-sleeved cotton and my pants only come up to mid-calf — a dramatic contrast to her woolly coat and muffler. "You'll catch your death of cold in those clothes."

I make a mental note to steal a coat as soon as possible. "I'm not really cold."

She only frowns at me, her eyes gentle. "Do you have someplace to go, honey?"

I think of Trenton, of Providence, of Hartford, and any other major city that Jasper might go to next. A never-ending list of places, a journey that never stops.

"Yes?" I phrase it like a question.

"Do you see that church over there?" she asks, pointing to a white-steepled church in a haze of red-leaved trees. I nod, and she nods too. "My husband is reverend of that church, and we're all about looking after folks who need looking after. If you ever need a place to stay, you come on over. Any day. Any hour."

I stare at her, honestly touched. Not for the first time, I wish that Jasper was here with me. So that he could finally see and know kindness, and feel genuine concern, even from a perfect stranger. Then he and I could end this wretched, pointless journey and finally stop to rest. _Why can't it be that simple?_ I wonder. _Why can't it be that good?_ If he or I had ever known this kind of peace in the beginning, I have a feeling we never would've begun this endless flight.

"Thank you," I say, and I mean it.

"You hungry? I've got stew on the stove and better bread than this. And if you play your cards right, I might even make a blueberry pie."

I have never tried eating human food before, and I don't know what will happen if I do. But somehow I know that if I go to this woman's church, she'll have a hard time letting go of me, and I'll have an even harder time not killing her. My newfound control is still too weak to chance. And, always in the background of my mind, Trenton, New Jersey is waiting, and possibly Jasper too. As much as I want to stay here with this woman, I know I have to leave. It's a long run from here to there, and time has never been on my side.

I stand from the park bench with a horrible pang of regret. How nice it was to be cared for. To have someone look into my eyes as if I mattered. "I've already... eaten," I tell her carefully. "But thank you. Thank you very much."

She looks back at me with sharp-eyed determination, not a trace of defeat on her face. "Have it your way for now, then. But when you've finished chasing your birds, you come on back to Vermont and knock on my door. You'll always have a place here, Angel."

"Alice," I correct automatically.

"Alice, Angel, it makes no difference to me. You'll always have a place here, just the same."

I walk away from her with disappointment, wondering if I'm doing the right thing. Wondering if I even have any concept of what I'm doing at all. This chase, this fruitless journey, is exhausting me. The constant moving and inevitable setbacks are beginning to pull my mood down into some dark vortex of despair. At times I wonder if I will ever find him, if this isn't some elaborate joke of fate.

In those moments, the same vision always comes back to me: his tender face as he strokes the hollow beneath my ear and softly says my name.

"_Alice."_ Just that, nothing more.

It keeps a steady flame of hope inside me, even when I'm surrounded by the black.

***

I wander alone for a year, and it is both the longest and shortest year of my life.

The longest, because every day is a lonely, dark sort of hell; a punishment that stretches on and on without any absolution. The shortest, because I spend these days in a numb, unfeeling stupor. I don't know where I'm running until I get there, and I don't know I'm leaving until I'm gone. With no real purpose to guide me, I even find myself longing for my days with Maria — just so I'd have a battle to focus on, a goal, a plan. I'd never realized, until that black year of wandering, just how much a man needs to feel useful in this world.

I do strange things during these days. Despite my bleeding conscience, I kill over a dozen humans, and each time afterwards I linger with the body for far too long. Sometimes I wait for their loved ones to find them, and when they do, I use my gift to blockade their grief. They laugh even as they cry, feel at peace even as they stagger back in horror. I think at first that this will help me heal somehow, but it doesn't. Because as soon as I go, I take my counterfeit feelings with me, and leave them behind with nothing but confusion and grief.

The moments when I manage to abstain are my best. Despite the lack of blood, I am clear-headed and calm; free of the guilt the so often stalks me. It has a cruel downside though, as most double-edged swords do. A month is the longest I'm able to go without hunting, and by the end of it every swallow feels like a mouthful of burning knives. The fire is so painful that I will kill anyone — man, woman, child, or infant, just to make it stop.

Those are deaths I regret the most; innocents at the mercy of my thirst.

When I start seeing snowmen in front yards and houses full of families and eggnog, I wonder about Peter and Charlotte. It isn't that I've missed them so much or even that I want the company. Honestly, at this point, all I need is for someone to tell me that I still exist. Each day makes me feel like more and more of a ghost, and at times I wonder if I might not already be dead.

For the first time in months, I lift my head up and think about where I am. Hartford, Connecticut. Peter and Charlotte will be in Atlantic City for Christmas, just as always, and with a slight nod of my head, I decide to meet them.

***

In Trenton, I steal a fur-collared coat from a wealthy woman who looks as though she must have a dozen other coats to wear. I steal it right from the coat-check of a well-to-do restaurant, and casually put it on as I walk out the front door. The woman's scent is particularly strong, lingering in the fabric and the fur, and it makes me shudder with thirst. I debate turning around and following her into the powder room, but when I see a violent snapshot of me killing her beneath the porcelain sinks, I walk rapidly away from the restaurant.

The coat is far too big for me and hard to walk in. The fur-cuffed sleeves are past my fingertips and the edge of the coat is brushing the tops of my boots. I wonder if I should even bother with the pretense, but when I catch my reflection in a dark store window, I am entranced. With the wide swathes of fabric hiding my boy's clothes and filthy shins, I look like any other glamorous woman on the street. It would be ideal if I could find Jasper now, when I actually looked like a woman instead of a dirty urchin.

Night is falling, so I cross to the shadowed side of the street. As soon as I hit the sidewalk, I am hit by a wave of light-headedness. I almost stumble into a boy hawking newspapers, and slump against the brick wall of a building for support. I suck in a deep breath as I feel myself slowly emptying, out of the present and into the future.

The world before me cuts out and reveals a long wallpapered hallway, where Jasper and one of his friends are walking. The pale-haired male, who I recognize instantly, puts a finger to his lips and motions for Jasper to be silent. He opens the door at the end of the hallway with a key, and the two of them stand in the doorway for a moment, watching their companion as she sifts through a pile of clothing on the bed. She is splendidly dressed in a navy blue evening gown with a scalloped hem, her white-blonde hair up in a chignon.

She doesn't lift her head, only cups her chin in thoughtfulness as she speaks. _"Peter, have you seen my beaded purse?"_

He grins._ "No, but I found something else pretty interesting. You'll never guess who was wandering around on the boardwalk, Char."_

Charlotte finally turns, still clutching a wraparound coat in her hands. _"Jasper!" _Her voice is full of surprise and delight, and she immediately dances over to embrace him. She squeezes him in a hug strong enough to break bones, relief clearly written in her perfect features.

Jasper merely looks awkward and overwhelmed. _"Ma'am."_

Next to them, Peter quirks a brow. "_Ma'am? Listen to you — one year away and you're already acting like a stranger." _He laughs and claps a hand on Jasper's back. _"It's just like old times isn't it? Leave it to you to show up and ruin all chances of anniversary sex."_

Charlotte rolls her eyes. _"Peter, don't be a cad. It's so good to see you, Jasper." _Her quick white hands fuss with his jacket, straightening the fabric and brushing the dirt from his shoulders. She pushes the honey-blond curls off his forehead and eyes him with sisterly disappointment. "_What have you been doing out there? You look like a vagrant." _

With Peter's hand still on his back and Charlotte still fussing over his appearance, Jasper shrugs a shoulder. _"Wandering,"_ he says simply.

Peter presses his lips together as if this simple statement saddens him. _"Well, you're here now, and that's all that matters. Char, did you keep that wool trench? The one that was too loose in the shoulders for me?" _She digs through the pile and holds up the coat like a trophy. Peter hands it over to Jasper with a smile. _"It's good to have you back, friend. Get yourself cleaned up and we'll go find some dinner."_

The vision fades, and I gasp, looking around at the busy street with new understanding. Several humans are staring at me strangely and I realize that I must have been leaning against the brick wall for quite some time while the vision held me. I quickly resume walking, my head still spinning with what I had seen. It was the clearest image of Jasper I'd had in a year. I memorize the new details of his appearance that I hadn't noticed before — the scars on his jaw and neck, the sardonic curve of his mouth. I cherish the sound of his voice again, even though he'd only spoken two monotone words.

Setting aside my girlish infatuation for a moment, I shake my head and focus in on a very important keyword: boardwalk. Peter had mentioned finding Jasper on the boardwalk. My breath comes in short gasps of excitement when I realize that I know where that is. I can picture it in my head — the long row of wooden planks in Atlantic City, lined with booths and shops selling ice cream and straw sun hats. There might be other boardwalks in the world, this is true, but Atlantic City is the best guess, especially since I know they've already been there before.

I pick my feet up into a run, brushing past the humans on the sidewalk with little care. A man cries out after me in anger when I accidently knock an umbrella from his grasp, but I only murmur a half-hearted apology and keep running. I am close this time, very close. Like a drowning man reaching for hand, I move through the streets with a sort of frantic desperation. This has to be it. This has to be the night.

My stomach jumps in exhilaration when I hit the outskirts of Trenton and keep moving South. I stick to the frozen beaches and city limits of the coast, not even allowing my thirst to interfere. As long as nothing changes between now and then, I might actually make it.

***

I am halfway across New Jersey when it begins to snow. Not the heavy blizzards of mid-winter, but a gentle holiday drifting of snowflakes as fine as cotton wisps. It brings back on odd reminder of my human days, blowing on the skeletal remains of dandelions in a field of green, in a world where wishes still seemed possible. I watch the snow while I run, floating white in a sky of deep black, caught in the amber glow of streetlights. I feel a strange movement in my silent heart then, as if something miraculous is about to occur.

I slow to a walk as I go beneath an underpass; a stale path that hadn't been touched in a very long while. Snowflakes follow me in on the winter breeze, and when the wind stirs the ground beneath me, I freeze.

Sunshine.

My body goes numb all over, tingling and in shock. There, lying at the side of the underpass is a folded piece of paper. My ears roaring with silent sound, I reach down and gingerly pick it up. The familiar scent echoes back to me, a perfect match to the spruce twig in my jacket pocket. I unfold the paper to find a map of the United States, wrinkled and coffee-stained on one corner. The scent is faint, much fainter than it had been on the spruce twig, but still there. Undoubtedly, she had once held this map in her hands.

I spin around, my stomach in knots. Tracking back the way I came is a set of ghostly footprints, bare and impossible small. Obviously female, with a graceful loping stride. The prints lead right back out to the pavement, and into the snowy night. As faint as the prints and the scent are, she may have come this way months ago, even a year. But at one time she passed through here, heading up the coast.

Abandoning all thoughts of Peter, Charlotte, and Atlantic City, I clutch the map in my hands and follow her trail.

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**A/N:** I thought about naming this chapter January Rain, as that was what I was listening to during Jasper's last section here. But "Chasing Birds" was far more appropriate to the actual message. I've already written the next chapter, and will probably post it in a few days. Reviews would be lovely. Don't be shy! :)

Disclaimer: Today's inspirational message – "Ask me no questions and I'll tell you no lies. Except that one. Just now."


	8. Great Expectations

**Great Expectations**

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I find the ocean just as I left it — stormy, grey, and furious, battering the edge of a deserted beach. The dismal sight curves my mouth into a wry smile, and I nod my head a couple of times as if I'm laughing at fate's miserable little joke.

Something changed. Just before Jasper reached Atlantic City, he turned around and went the other way, back toward New York. I laugh shortly, an odd sound that the wind snatches and carries away in an instant. If I could have cried then, I would have. I would have sobbed every tear I'd been saving up for the past year.

Instead, I turn around and trudge back through the sand, a slave to my visions and my fate.

For the next five years I follow him: New York, Albany, Harrisburg, Buffalo, Toronto, Cleveland, Detroit, Chicago, Frankfort, Lansing, Ottawa... All places I've been before on my search for him, all places that I've stayed in or stolen in, or hunted in the bordering woods. The repetition is daunting. I no longer feel as though his movements are pointless, but there is a strained sort of desperation to them that makes it hard for me to keep up. I feel like he is searching for something, just as I am, with a relentless, single-minded intent that I find fascinating. Though he never speaks in my visions anymore, I am drawn to his quiet intensity, and grow to love the narrowing of his intelligent eyes as he makes a decision.

I love the way he moves; the simple incline of his head, the casual shrug, his fast, almost predatory run. I love his tousled hair and his wide-set shoulders, and I love his hands best of all — long, white, with a strong curved muscle at the thumb and nails cut down to the quick. He touches his hair often, holding it out of his eyes or tucking it behind his ears. He touches the scars along his neck sometimes too, with a faraway look that I don't understand. I have visions of him staring at up at starlit skies. I have visions of him studying the earth of a trail. And my favorite, the one that make me smile the most — glimpses of him surrounded by books at night, reading one-handed against the dusty shelves.

I follow him almost blindly, drawn closer as each new facet of his personality reveals itself. But when I meet the Atlantic ocean alone for the fifth time in five years, I give up.

I don't give up on _him _— not that, never. But I do give up the chase.

As I trudge back over the familiar beach again, salt on my cheeks and in my hair, I realize that I have been trying to force fate. Finding Jasper wasn't happening as quickly as I wanted it to, so I had been chasing him instead, clinging tooth-and-nail to the only thing I had ever hoped for and known. But fate doesn't work that way. It falls where it wants to, and when it wants to. I'm only fighting against a matter of certainty, exhausting myself struggling after a destiny that is already mine.

I don't want to run anymore. If it were a matter of chasing Jasper until I eventually caught up with him, I would never stop. But somehow in the course of these five years, I've learned a bit of patience.

It just isn't time, not now, not yet.

I head for the Atlantic City Station numbly, pressing through a heavy crowd of humans with ease, even as the rain slicks against their fragrant skin. The corners of my mouth lift slightly. The cold years of disappointment taught me much more than patience. Somewhere along the lines I learned control, too. Abstaining from human blood is no longer the issue it once was, and I know that I'm capable of living among them now, just like Carlisle and his family. Mistakes will be made, and more lessons will be learned, but I'm finally ready to try.

I stand on the platform for a long while, looking at the list of cities. I have collected enough money the past few years to buy exactly one ticket, but without Jasper's whereabouts to guide me, I felt very uncertain about where I should be. I bite my nail uncertainly, still clutching the money in my hand. The words blur with a slow bout of light-headedness, and suddenly a stationary vision flashes before my eyes. A snapshot of red-orange leaves, a pond full of ducks, and a white-steepled church. By the time it clears and I find myself in the present again, I know exactly where to go.

It is hard not to feel at least a glimmer of defeat as I step up to the ticket counter. I look over my shoulder once, as if I expect Jasper to somehow be standing on the platform behind me, even after all this time. But there is nothing, and I am tired of living in the future and in the past. The present is mine, and I will make it a life worth living.

The woman exchanging bills for tickets smells wonderful, and I automatically stop breathing before the vision of violence can even enter my mind.

Instead, I smile politely, slide my money across the counter, and buy a ticket to Vermont.

***

I stand on the platform for what seems like hours.

Outside it is pouring rain, a fitting bit of weather for this horrific disappointment, this end without an ending that completely rends my heart. The rain is a steady drumbeat on the curving roof top, background noise for the roaring in my ears. Humans rush past me in blurs of dark colors, each hurrying on to someplace new or returning from someplace left behind. Numbly, I watch couples embrace in goodbyes or hellos, love bursting all around me even as I close up in despair.

A train. A _train_.

I stare down the line of disappearing train-tracks with unseeing eyes, my chest tight with grief. A train could take her anywhere in the country. And from there, who knows? A ship to Europe? Another train out West? As I stand in this miserable train station, dripping wet with rain, the world suddenly seems bigger than I'd ever imagined. I feel cold all over, empty. Five years of optimism and expectation are over, and the dream disintegrates with them.

I can't track her anymore. Wherever she's gone now, I can't follow.

A gentlemen wearing a uniform and a cap gives me a once-over, taking in the gleaming burgundy of my eyes and my chalk-white pallor. "Can I help you?"

"No," I say flatly, and turn back into the rain.

***

In the dead of winter, with snow lining the roofs and ice crystallized in the thick branches of maples, Middlebury, Vermont is idyllic — a painting that encapsulates all the coziness of winter, wrapped in quaint village charm. It is a living postcard, from the moment I step off the train to the moment I cross the Pulp Mill Bridge into town.

I am the only person on the streets, a lone figure wandering in a world of white. Smoke is rising from brick chimneys, and the frosted windows are all aglow. I make my way down the length of Pleasant Street, and turn at the white-steepled church lined with snow-covered hydrangea bushes. No one has shoveled the path to the door yet; the snow is knee-high and heavy all the way up the walk. As I approach the door, my fists clench in sudden nervousness. It isn't Sunday, but the windows are dark and somehow uninviting. After a breath, I raise my hand and quietly knock.

No one answers, so I knock again. Still, all is silent within the white building, and begin to think that maybe this was a mistake. Then I hear a shuffling noise to the right, and turn to see a woman in a heavy coat struggling through the snow. She is out of breath and shivering, carrying a shovel in both hands like a weapon.

I recognize her instantly. "Hello."

The woman jumps, startled, and then turns to me with a rapidly blinking stare. An astonished half smile grows on her face, and she presses a trembling hand to her chest. "Angel?" she finally asks.

It as if five years never passed. We could still be sitting on that bench by the pond, throwing bread crumbs to ducks. "Alice," I correct with smile.

She laughs with honest joy, and holds a hand up with her eyes closed for a moment, as if communicating to some silent friend. When she opens her eyes again, they are full of light. "Well, I'll be. I'll _be_. Just when life was starting to get boring. I hope you've come to stay?"

I nod.

"Well, you won't find anyone in the church today, not in this weather. William and I live in the parsonage, just there." She points. "Doors unlocked. You can go on in and warm yourself by the fire if you'd like. Will is out making calls for the day, but there's cider on the stove, and I've got ginger cookies in the oven. I'll be right in after I shovel the walk."

"I can do that," I say instantly, holding my hands out for the shovel. "Please, let me." Her human body looks too frail for such labor, and her breath is already coming out in ghosts of condensation.

She gives me a strange, measuring look, but hands the shovel over anyway. "You don't have to earn your keep, girl."

"I'd like to."

"I'll be in the house then," she says with a funny smile. She turns back for the parsonage, and then pauses to look over her shoulder at me. "I'm Margaret, by the way. Reverend William and Margaret McCance. Welcome home."

And indeed, home is what it becomes. Margaret wastes no time throwing me in the bath and lending me a worn cotton dress about four sizes too big. It belonged to her daughter, she tells me, and we pin it in the back so the neckline doesn't fall over my shoulders. She wrestles my short-cropped black hair into a side-part and gives me a pair of scuffed leather heels. When William comes home later that night, a small man with a thatch of grey hair and twinkling blue eyes, he is not even remotely surprised to see me sitting in his parlor. It isn't the first time Margaret has brought home a "stray."

They put me up in the Sunday School room of the church, a clean little room with a pot-bellied stove and a foldable cot. During the day I help out with chores, shopping, and anything else Margaret might need. And at night, after she and William fall asleep, I am free to roam the church. I grow to love its stillness — the way moonlight is fragmented by the beveled glass of the windows, the flickering of candles at the alter. Sometimes I lie on the wooden pews and watch the moon's progress across the ceiling rafters, envisioning Jasper's own journey across the moonlit landscape.

Sometimes the urge to follow him burns like fire in my chest, and it grows stronger and stronger with each new vision. He travels with Peter and Charlotte again every once and awhile now, and when he's with them, the visions are always the clearest. I collect each of the simple words I've heard his deep voice speak, scraping them into piles like brightly colored autumn leaves. _How is it possible to miss someone I've never even met? _I wonder, when the ache of longing for him become a physical pain in the pit of my stomach. _How is it possible to fall for a dream, a ghost?_

The other residents of Middlebury are equally as unsurprised by my presence as William McCance, and treat me with pity, if not affection. They are touched the by shadows under my eyes and my seemingly fragile stature.

"Must have been abused, poor thing," I hear one of the women say behind her hand as I cross the street carrying a bag of flour for Margaret. This is the general consensus of Middlebury, and probably what Margaret and William believe as well.

I tell them I am too old to attend school, but I often listen to the lessons from outside the schoolhouse door, gleaning every bit of human knowledge that I can. I teach myself science and arithmetic on my sleepless nights in the church, reading through textbooks and calculating sums on the chalkboard of the Sunday School room. The town library isn't anything grand, but it's my favorite place to be, especially at night. The dusty room full of books makes me feel closer to Jasper than any other place in the world, and I read my way through the great works of fiction and poetry with vigor.

I attend church every Sunday and sit in the front pew with Margaret, my hands folded in my lap as William speaks his piece. I don't understand everything he says, but I decide like the bible — it's like an instruction booklet on how to behave. There are the basics, of course: thou shall not kill, thou shall not steal. And other, more intriguing hints; the parables of Jesus, the suffering of Job, the mistakes of David, the passion of Song of Songs. _This is what it means to be human_, I think as scroll my eyes over the unfamiliar words. This is life at its richest and fullest, a new discovery between each thin-printed page.

"Are demons real?" I ask Margaret one day.

She gives me an odd look. "Of course. They're in the Good Book, aren't they?"

"How do you recognize them?" I ask. _Am I one of them?_ I think. _Is Jasper? Carlisle? Edward? Esme?_

Margaret looks me straight in the eye, as if she knows exactly what I'm thinking. "I've never seen one, girl. I wouldn't know."

When Margaret catches me reverently touching bolts of plum-colored rayon at Benedict's Store, she asks me if I know how to sew. For an entire afternoon, she teaches me whipstitches and embroidery, how to measure fabric and how to sew on buttons. I spend all that night sketching out designs on the chalkboard. Days later, I hand her a dress made out of sheets — the finest dress Middlebury had ever seen. She wears it proudly, even though the neckline is a little too bold and the cut is a little too slim. It makes a splash on Sunday morning when William is so distracted by her appearance that he has trouble with his sermon.

Within days I have a pile of requests from the women of the church. Some pay with cash and others barter with stray little belongings like fake pearls, t-bar heels, and preserves I'll never eat. By the end of my first year in Middlebury, I have quite a hoard of treasures and cash. Margaret and William are endlessly amused by this, and when I ask what I should do with the money, William tells me I should invest. We paint the front side of the church that morning, and he explains to me the wonders of the stock market.

A month later, I've more than quadrupled my earnings. William, amazed and impressed by my "streak of luck" and savvy with the market, starts investing in the same foolproof stocks. That year, a new stained-glass window went up behind the pulpit, and at Christmas Margaret got a pair of gloves straight from France.

I warn him before the stock market crash, and despite his years of mature experience, he listens. We both sell high and get out before the market plummets, and on Black Tuesday William raises his eyes from the newspaper and stares at me with an expression I don't understand. He and Margaret never say anything about it, but from that day on they look at me with an odd sort of caution. Every time I stumble with light-headedness or get a glazed look in my eyes, they share a glance between themselves and treat me with redoubled delicateness.

With the money I earn from selling my shares, I buy a two-story brick house on the edge of town, in a yard surrounded by sugar maples. The trees provide me with a luxury of privacy that I've never had before, and I delight in sunny days spent outside, studying the strange diamond-sheen of my skin. I wonder what Jasper would think if he saw me like this — would he find the refracting light lovely, as I did? Or would he chalk it up to another of my horrifying oddities? I spend hours in front of the mirror, smoothing fabric over my body and examining the different angles of my face. _Is this how he will see me?_ I think_. Will I be beautiful to his eyes?_

There is something wildly exciting about having my own home, a place where I am always safe and can always be myself. If Margaret notices that my kitchen is untouched or that my bed is never slept in, she says nothing. She continues to bake me pies, which I either obstinately refuse or give to the Blanchettes on the other side of the grist mill, who are struggling in the wake of the Great Depression.

My "business" of dress-making increases to hats, embroidered stockings, coats, blouses, and menswear. My orders come by post, usually from places like New York City or Boston. Even in these dark times of financial distress, the rich get richer, and demand high fashions that they can ostentatiously claim came from their "personal designer in Vermont." I donate the proceeds of these orders directly to the church. My own food supply is endless and I have no need for heat, so I keep very little for myself.

The years fly by as I carve out a life for myself, much faster than I thought possible. But even in those days surface happiness, I feel desperately, unbearably alone. This — Middlebury, Margaret, dress-making, the church, it's all temporary. All a precursor for a fate not yet spoken. It is the stillness before life, the utter darkness before creation.

In those long, empty years, Margaret and William grow old while I remain impossibly young. The older they grow, the more anxious they become about my life, and the more they urge me to settle down and marry. After several obvious setups with local boys and a very dogged courtship from a Montpelier politician, they both become frustrated with my apparent lack of romantic interest. After what feels like my hundredth polite refusal during a setup dinner, Margaret huffs at me like a badger and puts her hands on her hips.

"What in God's name am I gonna do with you? That poor boy was smitten upon arrival, and he comes from one of the finest families in Vermont — the good sort, churchgoing, with a pretty little house upstate. Lord knows he would've taken care of you!"

"I'm not interested, Margaret."

"Why ever not?" she demands, exasperated. She clears the table with quick, frustrated movements, snatching the salt and pepper shakers right out of my hands. "You can't stay alone forever, Angel."

I think of Jasper's riveting eyes and long white hands, his slow, sideways smile and the way he says my name. I _would_ stay alone forever, if I couldn't have him. I'd seen the best that it could be, and my heart would never let me settle for less.

I shrug, and pick up a towering stack of plates with ease. "I won't be alone forever. I'm waiting."

"Waiting for what?"

"He'll eventually show up on his own," I tell her with a soft smile. "They always do."

***

It is well after midnight and the sky is thrown with stars. Out in the desert, with no light to veil the constellations, the universe seems a brighter, bolder thing than ever. Maybe it's the quiet or maybe it's the warmth of the dirt at my back, but I don't think I've ever seen such a perfect night. Peter, Charlotte, and I are all lying on the surface of a high plateau, arms crossed behind our heads, faces turned up to the sky. Even the two of them are quiet for once, leaving me to pick up the slightest sounds of the wilderness: the trill of a mockingbird, the buzzing of wild bees, the occasional yip of a coyote. Somewhere very close to us, something small is burrowing into the damp red dirt.

I had stumbled upon them by accident in Colorado, and they led me across the wilds of Utah, chasing one of Charlotte's storms. The clouds had cleared for the night, leaving behind a fresh, wet scent and revealing the view before us now.

I see them less and less these days. Once every few years I make my way to one of their well-known haunts, but it has grown harder than ever for me to be around them. Their cavalier hunting habits depress me, and their unerring love for each other only makes me feel that much lonelier. They never asked me about my long disappearance — they could see on my face that it was a difficult subject. And somehow I just couldn't bring myself to tell them about the mystery scent I'd picked up again and followed for five years, only to lose at the platform of a train station.

During a bad night of despair and maudlin irony, I pressed the spruce twig between the well-worn, dog-eared pages of Great Expectations, and stole it from the New York Public Library. There it stays, in my jacket pocket — a book I haven't read in years but still carry around like a silent testament of the dream I'd had and lost. Mr. Charles Dickens, even in his darkest days, would have frowned at such blatant melodrama.

The winking of the North Star catches my attention, and I trace the familiar constellation of the Plough with my eyes. The glittering white light reminds me of that night so long ago, when I had made a decision and watched a star fall almost instantly from the sky.

"Why do stars fall?" I ask, not moving my gaze.

They are both quiet for a long time, and then Peter shrugs. "I don't know. Never really thought about it. Law of gravity, I suppose. Everything's drawn to something. It's fate's way of keeping the universe in line."

"I love shooting stars," Charlotte adds, and I can hear the grin in her voice. "They make it seem like anything in the world could happen."

Light streaks across the sky then, and in the darkness, I softly smile.

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**A/N: **Guess what happens next? ;) I couldn't possibly be more excited about writing the next chapter. In the meantime -- I did a lot of research on Middlebury, Vermont in order to make this as historically accurate as possible. I'm actually going there for a writer's conference next year, so I guess I'll see how good of a job I did. As always, reviews would be lovely and much-appreciated.

Disclaimer: Today's inspirational message – "You have nothing to fear but fear itself. And sharks."


	9. Chrysalis

**Sparks**

—**Middlebury, VT. 1948—**

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The ground is littered with gold and orange, and the trees are a melding of sunset and fire. Beyond that is a pure blue sky, and the grass at my feet is emerald-green. I dance through the yard without thought of an audience, crunching on dry leaves as I head for the mailbox at the edge of my property. Autumn is by far my favorite season — it is the one with the most color and the most change. I love the crispness of the temperature and the slow mornings, the fresh scent of apples in the air. Every moment spent outside is magic.

I pull the mail out and sort it as I stand there, sifting through the piles of orders and rejoicing at the new Vogue. _Thank God they're moving away from boxy shouldered dresses_, I think as I flip through the glossy pages. That style had been enormously unflattering on my petite frame. Dior's newest designs are perfect for my small waist and delicate shoulders; well worth a shopping trip to the Fifth Avenue boutique. I wonder if I could convince Margaret to come with me, and laugh at the thought her heated objection.

I turn back toward the house, closing my eyes as cool breeze lifts the scent of maples. Like a leaf falling from a tree, my body slowly starts to fade as I walk, and my mind spins with lightheadedness.

The vivid colors of autumn disappear, replaced with a nighttime vision of a wall of roses and a marvelous castle-like home. The vision is so clear that I gasp. Jasper is standing with Peter and Charlotte in a driveway, arms crossed loosely over his chest. He watches as Peter lifts a rich leather suitcase into the trunk of a Cadillac.

"_Atlantic City, huh? Is it Christmas already?" _he asks in his deep, slow voice._ "I didn't even notice."_

Peter tosses a grin at Charlotte_. "I guess that means we won't be getting a gift this year, Char."_

She laughs_. "Jasper, you're welcome to join us, of course— nevermind the look Peter's giving you right now. It's been four years, and you just got here."_

Jasper gives her a half smile_. "That's alright. You two have your anniversary." _I can hear a tinge of sadness in his voice, but I can't determine where it's coming from. Has he missed them that much? Or does their evident love for one another, their seamless, playful connection, cut him as deeply as it cuts me? After so many years of witnessing love and not experiencing it myself, each display of affection makes my loneliness more acute.

Peter closes the trunk and turns to Jasper with pity. _"Ride with us, at least. You can't get the full effect of the Caddy until you're actually on the road."_

"_Are _you_ driving?"_ Jasper asks with a lifted eyebrow.

Charlotte laughs against the back of her hand. _"Please, by all means, Jasper— take the wheel. It would probably be better for all parties involved."_

Peter turns to her with a look of mock indignation. _"Et tu, Brutus?"_

I watch as Jasper's eyes narrow in thought. Even pitch-black and surrounded by bruised purple, they are riveting in their quiet intensity — a hidden well of emotion beneath the surface. He lifts a shoulder into a casual shrug. _"How about I ride with you as far as Philadelphia? It's on the way."_

Peter gives him an odd look._ "What's in Philadelphia?"_

"_They have a nice library."_

Laughing, Peter rolls his eyes._ "Of course. You and your books. Charlotte?"_

She looks up at the sky thoughtfully_. "Perfect. The rain is starting to build now. It should pass over Philadelphia right when we get there."_

The vision fades back into the present autumn brightness, and I lift a trembling hand to my mouth. The mail falls from my hands to the grass, and I take in three ragged breaths of excitement. Before my mind can even register the command, my legs burst into a full-out run. I slam through the front door of my house, almost taking it off the hinges, and a careen into the study. I nearly rip the calendar off the wall as I flip through the pages.

Christmas is December 25th. Today is November 17th.

I pause for a moment, breathing in and out unevenly. I remember all the times I've gotten my hopes up only to have them crushed, so many times that I can't even begin to count them all. But this time I had a solid date to work with. This time I had something real. Never before had a vision been so clear — never before had hope been so wild and fluttering in my chest. Somehow I know, deep down, that this is it. After twenty-eight endless years of waiting, this is finally, finally it.

Part of me, the mad, obsessive part, wants to run out the door and keep running until I reach Philadelphia. Part of me wants to stake out that library until the end of time. After so many years of chasing Jasper, the impulse to run after him is an instinctual demand.

Instead, I sink down into a chair and lift the receiver off the hook. I wait with wide-eyed numbness as the line patches through to the train station. Twenty minutes later, all of my travel arrangements are made, and I stare at the wall in front of me with the same vacant expression. Slowly, I clasp my hands together and bring them to my lips.

"Please be there this time," I murmur against my fingertips, squeezing my eyes shut. "Please, please, please...." I repeat the words over and over again until it becomes more of a prayer than a chant, more of a promise than a plea.

And I imagine that somewhere in the deepest corner of his heart, Jasper can actually hear me.

***

After almost four years of solitude, I pick up the scent of Peter and Charlotte in Harrisburg. Much like our accidental meeting in Colorado, I wasn't expecting it at all — Harrisburg isn't even one of their familiar stomping grounds, and I find myself a little more than shocked at the coincidence. How is it that I can randomly run into my two friends anywhere in the country, and yet miserably lose the one person I had ever wanted to find?

I follow their scent into the hills of an extremely affluent neighborhood, to a pompous drive surrounded by tall, rose-covered walls. Even at night it looks impressive; a Victorian mansion so large it could technically be classified as a castle. I scale the left wall soundlessly and leap down onto a well-manicured lawn. None of the windows are lit, but I can hear someone moving around inside. Peter and Charlotte probably just cleared the house of its occupants. Recently, because I can still smell traces of dried blood.

Beyond the noise of the fountain and the sprinklers, I hear a faint metallic sound coming from further down the drive behind me. I slide behind a shadowed statue uneasily, and peer into the darkness. My posture relaxes when I see Peter walking up the driveway, twirling a set of keys. He is alone, whistling to himself, and looks far too content and mindless.

I wait in utter stillness and he draws closer. He doesn't notice me and doesn't catch my scent either; the wind is moving in the wrong direction. When his stride is directly even to my position, I casually step out, knowing I will scare the hell out of him.

Peter lets out a howl like a five-year old and the keys go sailing into the air. He's so startled that he actually recoils from me and covers his face, nearly falling over. I catch the keys with my left hand and calmly raise an eyebrow. At the sight of my face, Peter straightens and glares at me, irritation mixed with relief. He rips the keys back out of my hand.

"Jesus, Jasper," he mutters. "Why don't you just shoot me next time?"

"You're letting your guard down, old friend. It's been a long while since I was able to sneak up on you like that."

He scowls. "Not long enough." He is embarrassed and will grumble about it for awhile, but I can tell he isn't actually that upset with me. He sighs and brushes himself off with a glare. "So, nice disappearing act you pulled, there. Mind telling me where you've been the past, what, four years now? Char is going to maul you— I hope you know that."

His voice is slightly strained, an odd contrast to the relief I can feel washing out of him. I've been gone too long, I realize. He and Charlotte were worried. I'm torn between feeling insulted by this, and feeling grateful that someone out there actually cares. With my unexplained bouts of depression and strange aversion to killing humans, they have every right to treat me like a leper. Instead, they worry about me. In a twisted sort of way, it's actually kind of comforting.

As if summoned by Peter's words, Charlotte herself appears in the open doorway of the house, toting a suitcase. She squints down the driveway for a moment, and I watch as her expression changes from surprise to relief to fury. I wince. Despite her delicate white-blonde looks and usually even-keeled personality, Charlotte can have quite a temper. She locks her jaw and stalks toward me with a face like thunder.

"Four years, Jasper! _Four!_ Without a single word— without even so much as a note! Do you have any idea how worried we were?" she yells, even as she hugs me. Her arms around me are fierce, but like Peter, she is radiating relief. She pulls back to look at me and the fury melts to concern. Even in the dim light, she can see the dark circles beneath my eyes and the utter blackness or my irises. "You look terrible. Your eyes..."

"I'm fine."

Charlotte is unconvinced. She shrugs on a little coat, and hands the cream-colored suitcase over to Peter. "You sure? We can grab something real quick if you'd like. Peter's already eaten, but I could use a hunt."

"No, ma'am. I feel better this way," I say, and it's the truth. Even burning with thirst, my mind feels sharp and clear — these are my best days, the days when I haven't touched a human life in weeks. Without the memories of fear and pain haunting me, it's almost easy to believe that I'm somewhat normal, rather than the nightmare I actually am.

Peter puts an arm around Charlotte's shoulders with a smirk. "Jasper's a pacifist now, honey. Remember?"

I scowl. "I'm glad you find it so amusing."

He laughs. "No, no, it isn't that. I just love imagining what Maria's reaction would be. Char and I saw her, you know— that's why I was so relaxed when you found me in the driveway."

I flinch at the mentioning of Maria's name and blink as if I've just been splashed with ice water. Peter's two ideas don't even remotely connect with one another. If he and Charlotte had run into Maria, why the hell would Peter be whistling and relaxed? Why aren't they running across the country in terror right now? The overprotective, paranoid Peter I know would never let his guard down like that. Hesitantly, I test the air around him for signs of panic and find nothing but amusement.

He laughs at my expression. "I was relaxed because seeing her made me realize that she's never going to come after Charlotte and I. Nor you, for that matter. She has much bigger problems to deal with. You remember that coven from New Orleans?"

My answer is quick, practiced, and militaristic: "French, with four mature vampires. They hold the Louisiana line solidly, likely due to an invasion-detection talent within the coven. They'll accept nomads passing through, but no armies."

"Right. Well, leave it to Maria to piss them off. Charlotte and I were moving with a storm across Arkansas and saw their two armies battling it out in Texarkana. I wouldn't risk taking Char any closer than we already were, so we watched from a bluff about a mile off. I don't think Maria was faring well. The Frenchies were circling around behind her lines and she wasn't prepared for it."

I shake my head. Few things had changed since we left. Maria was famous for neglecting her defensive line. A bold attack may work when dealing with amateurs, but the Louisiana coven was much smarter than that. The memories begin to pour back in full force then, visions of battles and strategies flashing across the backs of my eyes. I think of Maria's furious face; the way she'd slap a palm down on the map I'd marked with retreat routes.

"_Only cowards retreat,"_ she used to say, her teeth clenched, eyes glittering. _"Are you a coward, Jasper Whitlock, or are you going to win me half of Texas?"_

Peter shrugs. "Either way, she's in a bad spot. I bet she'll lose Texas to them, maybe even more than that. She'll have to start making newborns out of civilians again just to hold Monterrey."

"Peter, can we not?" Charlotte interrupts, holding a hand up. Her voice sounds quieter than I'm used to, and I can feel the beginnings of despair and horror echoing around her. "Seeing that woman again after all these years was terrible enough. I don't want to talk about her. And I'm sure Jasper doesn't want to hear about it either."

Peter frowns instantly, and rubs at her shoulder. "You're right. I'm sorry, Char." He looks at me sheepishly. "Sorry, Jasper. It's just been such a long time."

I lift a shoulder in causality, though my chest is tight and burning. There is a moment of awkward silence between us — three friends who lived through hell and know better than to speak of the devil.

This new information about Maria settles like poison in my stomach. Living with the memories was bad enough; actually hearing of her present-day activities was akin to getting kicked in the face. But because Peter and Charlotte's feelings of misery are suddenly becoming magnified by my own, I take a deep breath and thread calm through the air. No need to ruin the first visit in four years. I nod to the suitcase in Peter's hands. "You two headed somewhere?"

His expression brightens instantly. He motions me toward the side of the house, where a shiny grey-blue car sits in the driveway, the trunk already open. "Isn't it great? It's a Cadillac. Much better than the Model T. Remember that old thing?"

"I vaguely recall something about you crashing it into a grain silo in Wichita, yes."

"As I have _repeatedly_ explained, the _sun_ was in my _eyes_," Peter laughs, holding his hands up. He studiously ignores the shared look between Charlotte and I, and moves around to put the suitcase in the trunk of the Cadillac. "Anyway, we found this beauty in the garage and thought we'd drive to Atlantic City in style."

"Atlantic City, huh?" I ask numbly. "Is it Christmas already? I didn't even notice."

Peter grins at Charlotte over his shoulder. "I guess that means we won't be getting a gift this year, Char."

She laughs. "Jasper, you're welcome to join us, of course— nevermind the look Peter's giving you right now. It's been four years, and you just got here."

I give her half a smile. "That's alright. You two have your anniversary."

As nice as it was to see them again, I still felt uncomfortable intruding on their anniversary. It was a special tradition of theirs that I was not a part of, and rightfully so. Even staying in the same hotel was a little too close — with my super-sensitive hearing, not to mention my emotional abilities, they wouldn't have much privacy. Besides, being around them, especially in the midst of their anniversary, made me feel more alone than ever.

Peter looks at me with a mix of pity and embarrassment. "Ride with us, at least. You can't get the full effect of the Caddy until you're actually on the road."

I raise an eyebrow. "Are _you_ driving?"

Charlotte giggles. "Please, by all means, Jasper— take the wheel. It would probably be better for all parties involved."

Peter turns to her with a look of mock indignation. "Et tu, Brutus?"

I think about it for a moment, envisioning the state lines in my head. Philadelphia was about midway to Atlantic City, and not only was their public library easily accessible through a downstairs window, it also boasted an enormous philosophy section. I had made it almost a quarter of the way through Dostoyevsky through the last time I was in town, but had to leave off early because a cleaning crew. "How about I ride with you as far as Philadelphia? It's on the way."

Peter raises his eyebrows. "What's in Philadelphia?"

"They have a nice library."

"Of course." He rolls his eyes. "You and your books. Charlotte?"

She looks up at the sky thoughtfully. "Perfect. The rain is starting to build now. It should pass over Philadelphia right when we drop you off."

***

From Vermont to Philadelphia, I check and re-check my own vision more than a thousand times.

Doubt is screaming like a demon behind my shoulders: what if I'm wrong, what if I miss him, what if this isn't it? Hopelessness joins in halfway across Pennsylvania when the next vision flickers and solidifies. Jasper mentioned a library in the vision with Peter and Charlotte, but the library is not what I see. Only a kitschy little dinner with red vinyl seats and gold-specked formica countertops. I spend the entire train ride slumped over in my seat, head in my hands, my mind flashing image after image of the same stationary fate: a warm cup of coffee between my curving palms. The jingling of a bell above the door. Jasper's eyes meeting mine.

I burst out of the train station at a full-on run, and slow down and then speed back up again several times when the humans aren't looking. I fly around the streets of Philadelphia like a crazy person, checking every restaurant, diner, and bar. The sun is out, so I have to skip between shadows and keep the collar of my coat turned up against my shining neck. The stress is like a gigantic knot in the center of my chest, throbbing with every passing second. When I finally find the right diner — a little place called Hal's three blocks down from the public library, I give a dry sob of relief.

I check into the nearest hotel, throw my belongings on the bed, and immediately stalk back out to Lord & Taylor. For hours I mindlessly flit from section to section, only half listening to the staff as they gush over my white skin, my tiny waist, and the seemingly endless amount of cash in my pocketbook. I leave with more than I intended to get — and run back to the hotel with an armful of boxes and bags because I don't trust them to send the merchandise to my room in time. I shower, primp, and clothe myself in complete and utter detachment; my mind is already in the diner, playing the scene over and over again to make sure it stays the same.

When the sky turns grey and rain starts to patter against the window, I turn around and face the full-length mirror. For a moment, in the shady light of the storm, I see the girl in the mirror room again: terrified and bewildered; a wild, animal thing with no purpose and no sense of self. I touch my fingertips to hers, and stare back into eyes that had long-since warmed from ruby-red to gold. Her skin is polished alabaster now, her hair styled and shining. Instead of a dirty hospital gown, she wears a silk dress the color of wine and a gauzy grey scarf. Diamonds flash in her ears. Her once-bare feet are incased in delicate suede heels.

_She is beautiful,_ I think. _I am beautiful._

I remember the days not so long ago when I would watch other women walk by me on the streets, my throat raw with envy. They, so perfect, so graceful, with their rich fabrics and fur, pearls around their wrists, laughing gaily as they sauntered down the sidewalk. And me, a dirty little changeling in stolen boy-clothes — a caterpillar in a world full of butterflies.

No matter how I may have thirsted after it before, I was never ready. If I had caught Jasper that first time, the second, or even ten years ago, it wouldn't have been right. I had to learn to stand on my own before I could reach out a hand for someone else. I had to build a life in order to share it. Fate had never been trying to keep Jasper and I apart; always, in the slowest, most perfect way, it was bringing us together. There is a small measure of peace in knowing that, in being able to see that fate had painted a masterpiece, when all I'd asked for was a picture.

I sweep a coat around my shoulders, grab my handbag, take a deep breath, and head out the door. On the sidewalk of the hotel, the rain is picking up, and it dots the silk of my dress in wet little specs. I extend my umbrella and splash down the street to the diner, where only a handful of humans can been seen through the plate-glass window, staring out at the storm.

I look to the right once, down the rainy, puddled road as if I expect to see Jasper walking toward me. But no one else is out right now; the light is fading early, and the temperature is plummeting into ice. I close my umbrella and push through the door of the diner with a jingle. Everyone looks up at me as I enter, their eyes widening at my glamorous appearance. This is a diner full of middleclass workers and families; my rich, fur-lined coat is obscenely out of place.

My wet heels click against the tile as I cross the room and sit at the counter with my back to the door. I almost can't stand it, not being able to watch him enter, but I had my back to the door in the vision, and I'm not about to risk changing things now. My hands are trembling so hard that it's difficult for me to take my gloves off. I place them on top of my handbag and delicately wipe the rain from my ice-cold cheeks. Every movement, every breath, feels almost painful; my muscles are tense with anticipation and my spine is rigid with fear.

"What'll it be?" the man behind the counter asks, wiping his palms on a dirty apron. He looks at me, not with the usual slack-mouthed perverseness, but curiosity.

"Oh, um..." I hadn't thought of that. "Nothing, thank you. I'm just waiting for someone."

His eyes alight on my trembling white hands. "Late, is he?"

I nod numbly. I can't seem to bring myself to tell him that I've been waiting for twenty-eight years.

He pours a cup of coffee and sets it in front of me, his eyes kind. "On the house," he says gruff voice, and we share a commiserating smile. He, too, may have waited for someone once. He, too, may have sat alone in a dinner, waiting for either the end of the world or the beginning of it — depending on whether or not that one essential person walked through the door.

I wrap my hands around the hot mug and stare down at nothing. I recall the vision over and over and over again, making sure that nothing has changed. Every second passing by is a new, horrifying kind of torture — an instant in which Jasper could make a new decision and change everything. The future, life, my visions, none of it has ever seemed more uncertain than sitting there in that diner, staring at a cup of black coffee I'll never drink.

And then— I feel it.

Not the lightheadedness of a vision, but a sweeping in my stomach; a dropping feeling like stepping off the edge of a cliff and losing the solid ground beneath. Out of the corner of my eye, I see a tall blonde figure walk past the side window of the diner.

A second later, the bell above the door jingles, and the drumming of rain on the sidewalk grows louder. Cold air sweeps in behind me, along with a cool, delicious scent that makes my eyes flutter shut with longing. Chills break out all over my skin, and my breath catches and then picks up again in short, panicked intervals. He's here.

_Turn around, Alice._

He's here, he's standing in the doorway. It's real this time. He's here.

_Alice, turn around._

It's the mirror room all over again— a new beginning, waking up after a lifetime of sleep.

_Alice!_

I turn, mind spinning, nerves completely shot. _Jasper_.

He is standing in the doorway, wet with rain, his head turned slightly to the right as he glances at a family with children in the corner booth. At the sight of his face: the familiar curve of his cheekbone, the strong line of his jaw, the narrowed, thoughtful eyes— all the nervousness disintegrates, melting to the floor beneath me in one delicious rush. Joy takes it place, building up to a brighter, wilder emotion than anything I've known. It sparks against love and rages, a feeling so strong that it could have lit the diner on fire with its intensity.

As if he can sense it, his gaze slides across the room, and I wait a thousand breathless lifetimes until his eyes meet mine.

* * *

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.

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**A/N:** So much fun to write! This is the halfway point of the story, and from here on out it's all Jasper, Alice, and learning how to love. Peter and Charlotte (who rock my world, by the way) probably won't make another appearance in this story unless I decide to introduce them to Alice, so this was also kind of a fond farewell to them. For those of you who didn't understand Peter's (bad) "et tu, Brutus?" joke -- it's a Shakespeare reference. He and Charlotte probably saw a "Julius Caesar" production somewhere. After killing people for tickets.


	10. Sunshine

**Sunshine**

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* * *

It is not the first thing I smell, nor the second.

The greasy smoke of human cuisine hangs heavy in the air, and overpowering even _that_ is the hard, devilish scent of blood: a palette of different shades, strengths, and odors, each one signifying a life, a heartbeat, a body full of warmth. My throat burns at the throb of half a dozen pulses, and my fingers curl at my sides.

But before I can calculate the risk or even contemplate the action, I freeze.

The third scent is subtle in comparison, but pervades through the din like ink bleeding onto white paper. Slow, detailed, and immediately apparent.

My stomach twists, and my fists uncurl in an instant, my breath tangled in my throat. Like cracking open a familiar old book or stepping into a painting I've stared at all my life, I am thrown back to a watercolor memory of my human days — fishing Mercer Creek in high summer, lying on the bank with my eyes closed and my head thrown back, the sun tracing warmth on my eyelids and my cheeks. It is the scent of sunshine, of summer: clean cotton, sweet grass, waterlily and wildflowers. More than a smell, but a feeling too, an experience: I can almost see the flickering golden light, and hear the whippoorwill singing in the brush.

_It's her_,I think, my mind spinning. _She's here._

At the same time this information manages to register, I am hit with a storm of emotion so strong that it nearly knocks me off my feet. It actually has visible color to it: a translucent red-gold shimmer of reigning joy. It burns into me just as powerfully as the familiar sunshine scent, an emotion almost too overwhelming for me to handle.

My eyes slide across the room, and lock onto a female vampire not five feet away from me.

She stares back at me with warm amber eyes, and her gaze brightens with contained feeling — like it's all she can do to keep from weeping. She is petite and spun-glass delicate, but her smile, her personality, and her presence, all burn with the intensity of a dozen people or more. Her hair is shiny black and boy-short, exposing her high cheekbones and a long, graceful neck. Everything, from the line of her collarbone to the cut of her silk dress is perfect, more than perfect. I can't keep my eyes off her hands, which move with such grace that she could have been underwater.

She is, without question, without argument, without thought, the most beautiful thing that I have ever seen.

Her hands move to push off the counter behind her and she dances off the high stool like a ballerina. Much too fast, with a smile that could melt even the most glacial heart, she glides toward me on little black high heels. Experience and instinct cause me to stiffen and turn a shoulder back, preparing to defend myself if necessary. But there is no malice in her aura, only that same bright, beautiful joy. She stands at arms length and tilts her head slightly, her curious golden eyes sparkling.

"You've kept me waiting a long time."

I very nearly shudder. Her _voice_. I can sense a hundred different emotions in this one simple sentence, the first words she speaks.

Because I don't know how to reply, I mumble an very automatic, very Southern apology. My stomach leaps when her smile widens and she laughs at my response — nothing, nor bells nor angels, could have sounded more perfect to my ears.

She reaches out her hand for me.

With that simple motion, her delicate hand extending toward mine, she manages to pierce through my every defense. My hand wraps around hers without a second thought, before I can even stop to wonder why. Her emotion burns into me the moment my skin touches hers, so impossibly warm that both of us stop breathing and moving at once. The instant I curve my fingers around her tiny palm, everything in my pointless life suddenly seems worth it. Brilliant and fierce, hope resurfaces out of the dark, so strong that I wonder how I ever could have lost it.

We each take a step toward each other as if it is the most natural thing in the world, and suddenly I am close enough to feel her breathe. The sunshine scent is beaming all around me, the only thing I can taste or comprehend. That I would find her here, after all this time... that she would be sitting in this place like she was waiting for me... it seemed almost divine. The irony and shock cause a strange, humorless laugh to breathe out of me, dangerously close to hysterics.

"Alice," she says faintly, looking every bit as overwhelmed as I feel.

"Jasper."

The door opens, startling us both, and hitting me in the shoulder. Our touch is broken as a human couple pushes through, shaking droplets of rain off an umbrella and moving around in a mess of damp coats, purses, newspapers, and bickering. How two humans could possibly take up so much space and make so much noise, I'll never know. I stare right through them, unthinkingly herding them away with my hands, my eyes only for Alice. She laughs, and I smile. The first real, genuine grin I've felt in over a century slants up on my face, slow and sideways.

"Somewhere less public?" I suggest, pressing the door open.

She moves toward me again, eagerly, then pauses. Embarrassment seeps out of her along with self-irritation. Shaking her head, she dances across the tile again and grabs her few belongings off the countertop and the high stool, folding a coat under her arm and sliding on her gloves.

With a winning little smile, she hands me an umbrella. "You're taller," she explains, and I laugh.

I open the door for her and we step into the rain. Alice is so petite that her head barely comes up to my chest, and though we aren't touching anymore, I feel her closeness acutely. Without any sort of dialogue or plan, the two of us start walking up the sidewalk together, huddled beneath the umbrella. I wince at our reflection in the darkened store windows — she, so beautifully dressed and sophisticated; me, in my military jacket and scratched-up boots. If the differences between us weren't so glaringly obvious, we could have passed for any normal human couple.

She is so perfect, too perfect. I feel somehow insubstantial next to her, as if she were made of marble and I of glass. And yet, at the same time she also makes me feel _more_ than I am too, repleted vicariously through her glorious tangle of emotions.

This, every part of it, from the moment I entered to diner onward, feels like a dream. The rush of water on the streets, the droplets sliding off the edge of the umbrella, Alice's pale face turned toward mine. My hand itches to touch hers again, and I flex it at my side, wondering if she would allow it — if she would even want it. It seems a rough, unlovely thing in comparison to hers; a mass of crescent scars and calluses. Her own small hands, even gloved, are more beautiful than any part of me.

"Where should we go?" she finally asks, breaking the spell of silence. I can sense hesitancy in her aura, like she wants to make a suggestion but isn't sure how.

All I know is I want to be alone with her, someplace where I don't have to concentrate on anything else. Someplace quiet where I can hear her voice. I don't even care if nothing comes of it, or if she never lets me touch her perfect hand again; I could spend the whole night just staring at her face, just listening to her talk.

"The library is just closing up," I say, looking ahead at the darkened building. The thought of being alone with her there, surrounded by the books I love, wrapped up in her scent, absolutely thrills me. " We could probably slip on in and stay there until the storm lets up."

Alice makes no reply, so I glance down at her. Her gaze is utterly vacant. It only happens for an instant, but suddenly there is an emotional void next to me, like her body is completely empty. My spine straightens in alarm, but before I can even speak or breathe, her eyes come back to life again.

"Of course," she says simply. "We'll be fine."

I'm not entirely sure what just happened, but it frightens me. "What—"

She bites her lip, and I can sense many things surging through her at once: fear, hesitance, and a small fluttering of hope. "I can... see things. Things that haven't happened yet. I get snapshots, or glimpses, into the future."

Realization hits me like a punch in the stomach.

"That's how you knew I was coming," I say flatly, not a question.

Oddly, it makes more sense than my own theories of fate, love, and destiny. She was waiting because she knew I'd be there. How disappointingly simple. How appropriate. And to think, for a moment I had almost imagined her mine — this lovely, ethereal creature who I had no business even talking to, let alone touching. My mood darkens exponentially, and I shove my hands into my jacket pockets. I tap a thumb on my battered copy of Great Expectations and sniff out a humorless little laugh. I should have known.

"An interesting talent," I say, trying desperately to keep the bitterness from my voice. "But it must not be exact. If it were, you wouldn't have been waiting on me for so long."

She bites her lip again, and I wonder at the embarrassment that suddenly surrounds her. She lifts a tiny shoulder into a shrug. "My visions and the timing of the visions appear to be based on decisions. Either my own decisions or the decisions of others. In the chain-reaction of hundreds of decisions we make every single day, many things can be altered. There was a very real chance that you could change your mind and never make it to the diner at all, or that surrounding circumstances would have prevented you from making it there."

I scowl to myself and can't think of a way to reply without scaring her off. _"I would never change my mind when it comes to you," _sounds overemotional, and _"nothing in the world could have prevented me from being there,"_ sounds horribly dramatic. I settle instead for shrugging. "Oh."

No humans would dare to be out in this rain, but I look around once just to be sure. I stride across the front lawn quickly, and over the grey ribbon of cement. But instead of leading her up the steps and through the doors, I turn left and we disappear into the shadows of the surrounding trees. Waltzing in the front door would be the easiest route, of course, but that decision has caused me trouble in the past. I don't want to have to kill anyone tonight, especially not in front of Alice. "There's a window around the side here that I usually use."

"Breaking and entering," she says with a grin. "I like it."

The window is a ground level slide that leads to a tiny office off the history section. I cup my hands on the glass and peer in just to be sure that it's unoccupied. I can see that an oversized desk takes up half the space, and the other half is filled with piles of old books. Alice waits as I turn the latch and push the window open. I gesture for her to go first, and hold the umbrella over her head so she doesn't get wet. She drops to the floor and I crawl in backwards, handing the umbrella through to her first. There isn't nearly enough room for both of us in the room. When my feet touch the floor I can feel the fabric of her coat behind me; we are literally millimeters apart. I shut the window and turn, dripping wet and breathless at the closeness.

A particularly vivid fantasy of pressing her backwards onto the desk makes my hands curl into fists. I clench my teeth and turn away from the soft glow of her eyes, unwilling to even consider acting on that idea. It's been far, far too long since I touched anyone like that. Maria was the last, and those dark memories have no place next to Alice's innocent light. "I just need... to... get to the lamp," I say quietly, gesturing for her to move aside.

I can catch just the slightest flash of hurt before she slides away. She perches on the edge of the desk and crosses her legs, watching me with cat-eyes as I step past her and turn on the light. "You come here often?"

"I like to study. Our kind tends not to bother with human knowledge, but I find it fascinating."

"It makes an eternity seem richer, doesn't it? More worthwhile," she says, smiling, echoing my own sentiments without my even saying a word. She picks a book up and flips through it gingerly, running a fond hand over the yellowed page. "I don't remember anything from my human life, but I must have gone to school at one point, because I awoke with an inherent knowledge of how to read and the basics of math and geography."

I pause. "You don't remember?"

"Nothing. I awoke alone, and everything before that moment is blackness."

She says it so simply, so casually, that one might never guess how this hurts her. But I can feel the swell of loneliness as deeply as if it were my own. I want to reach out and take her small hand into mine, but I don't want to scare her. Instead I stand back and send her the strongest wave of contentment I can manage. Never before has my gift seemed so inadequate. "Have you never been around another of our kind, then?" I ask gently. That would explain a lot.

"I've _seen_ others," she says carefully. "A family of vampires that I think w— I'll a part of," she stammers out the last few words quickly, and humiliation seeps out of her. She picks up another book and flips through it, determinedly refusing to meet my eyes. "You're the first vampire I've met face to face, though. In twenty-eight years."

I suddenly feel cold all over, and sick with bitterness. It's all beginning to make sense now: her lack of fear at the sight of my scars, the blinding joy in the diner, her eagerness to be with me now — it's all because she's never met another vampire before. After twenty-eight years of loneliness and confusion, I would probably be starved for company as well. I suppose that's it, then. I'm a temporary stepping stone for her on the way to meet her predestined coven. A low growl begins in my throat, but I cut it off by pretending to cough.

Discomforted by my blank-faced silence, she continues awkwardly. "I've... been around humans a lot though. At home, I interact with them on a regular basis."

Both of her statements are odd, but I ask the easiest question first. "Home?"

"I live in Middlebury, Vermont. I have a house, and a small business."

My dark mood disappears, outshone by the amusement of imagining a vampire passing out fancy little business cards and baking apple pies in an oven like a human housewife. I throw my head back into a booming laugh. Alice doesn't understand why I'm laughing, but she smiles at the sound of it anyway, looking a little sheepish. I shake my head. "How?" I ask. "_Why_?"

Her smiles fades, and hesitance all but bleeds from her aura. "I live off the blood of animals instead of humans," she says carefully, watching me out of the corner of her eye. "It makes it easier to live among them without detection."

A vivid memory comes back to me of Peter in a New York alley, talking to me about rats, cats, and the order of life. I stare at Alice — this strange, marvelous little creature, and can barely bring myself to believe that she lives the kind of lifestyle Peter had once laughed at. I had always assumed that a vampire would weaken and starve under such conditions, that the animal blood wouldn't be enough to support our system. But despite the ponderous color of her irises, she looks as healthy and sharp as any other vampire.

"Have you _ever_?" I ask in wonderment. "Killed a human, I mean."

"Thousands." She smiles wryly when I lift my eyebrows. "For the first five years, every human I saw was abruptly followed by a vision of me killing them. I would see it before it happened, every time — just as vividly as if I'd actually done it. The smell, the taste, the blood moving down my throat, everything. It scared me so badly that I would just run away."

"Changing your decision, and therefore changing the future," I say, and she nods. I run a hand through my hair, thinking. "And you're able to survive this way? Draining only animals?"

"Absolutely. And the longer I practice, the easier it gets to be around humans. The thirst is always still there of course, because humans smell so much better than any animal I've ever come across. But killing them isn't necessary."

I still can't wrap my mind around it. "What sort of animals? Like, pigeons and things?"

She cracks a laugh. "_Not_ pigeons. Deer, elk. The predators are the most satisfying, and the most fun. There are black bears in the mountains near my home, and bobcats. I make about a monthly trip to the Adirondacks as well— for lynx."

My eyes sweep over her dainty little body again — the thought of her wrestling with a bear makes me cringe. But would I rather she drink from humans? Staring into her golden eyes, I realize that her diet, and the lack of human blood on her hands, was a part of what made her so captivating to me. There was a gentleness to her, a refined serenity that I'd never seen in another of our kind. She was innocent, guilt-free, and happy about it. Though a large part of me aches to be _with_ her — to touch her skin, to smooth a hand over her shining hair — I must admit that another part of also wants to _be_ her in a way. I want to experience the kind of peace that she knows. I want to live life without strings attached, without guilt and shame.

"I've struggled with this for a long while. Killing humans," I say slowly, then pause as another horrible thought occurs to me. With her gift of seeing the future, she must have already known this about me, before she met me in the diner. "Is that why you found me? Did you see my decision to starve myself, rather than kill? Did you come here to tell me about this?"

She closes the book in her hands slowly and looks up at me with an equal measure of fear of embarrassment. "That's not... entirely why I found you. I didn't know of your decisions, but I could see that you were sad. I hoped that I could somehow make a difference."

She would never know how much. I look down at her face, and wonder why I'm doing this — how I could even think I deserved to be around her. "I don't know where to start."

"Come back to Vermont with me," she says quietly, and only I, with my talent, could sense the urgent emotion behind that request. "I have plenty of room. I can show you how I live, and you can decide what you want to do."

If I were a good man, the kind of man who still had even a shred of decency left, I would have said no. I realize, even as I draw closer to her, that I should walk away and leave her alone. My dark moods and even darker history have no place in her world. But it's impossible to resist her hopeful smile, and even more impossible to ignore what feels far more than a _want_ to be with her, but a _need_. An absolute, unavoidable must. Saying no required much more willpower than I had ever possessed. "You don't mind?"

"_Of course not_!" she bursts out, and then presses her lips together in humiliation. "L-like I said, I've never even spoken to another vampire before. There are a lot of things that I still don't understand. You can... show me how you live as well."

I can't help it. I can't stop it. Even though I know this idyllic lifestyle and this perfect woman could never be mine, I still want both with all my heart. "It's a deal, then."

She takes in a breath. "Wonderful!" Joy and excitement flood the room. Hers or mine, I'm not entirely sure. Alice clasps her hands at her chest and beams at me with luminous gold eyes. "We can take the train back tomorrow morning."

I flinch. "A train?" The thought of being in an enclosed space with humans makes me feel sick. I had been in similar situations before that ended... unfavorably. I might be more than willing to try this new lifestyle, but I know my limits. Shakily, I remove a book from the shelf next to me and flip through it without seeing the pages. I don't want to slaughter a human in front of Alice, but if I'm thrown into a dangerous situation of that magnitude, I don't know if I'd be able to stop myself.

As if she knows exactly what I'm thinking, Alice grins. She looks down at her nails with a prideful little smirk that I find ridiculously adorable. "I already bought every ticket for the last three cars and instructed the train personnel to leave us alone. We'll be fine."

I laugh. The lack of privacy about my future would take some getting use to. _All_ of this, would take some getting used to. But if it meant being near her, I would take any risk. If it meant being near her, I would do anything. "This whole 'seeing the future thing' must be nice," I say, placing the book back on the shelf and turning to face her.

She stares back at me with an oddly serious expression, and for a moment I feel a flicker of the radiant joy I had seen in the diner.

"You have no idea," she says, and she smiles.

* * *

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A/N: Ah, yes. The obligatory "getting to know you" chapter. And all Jasper, too. :) As I am currently raging sick and drugged-up on theraflu, I thought I'd use it to my advantage and tap into Jasper's dark moods and self-loathing. The next chapter should pick up the pace a little more when I start moving out of we-just-met territory.


	11. Redemption Stories

**Redemption Stories**

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The train pulls into the Middlebury station in the daylight of late afternoon, and the sky is grey with falling snow. We don't have any luggage — Jasper carries nothing and in my foolish excitement I had forgotten my belongings at the hotel in Philadelphia, so we merely wait as the train comes to a full stop.

The trip had largely consisted of trading stories, but only the good ones. I don't tell him about the horror of waking in the mirror room, or the unbearable loneliness that followed. And likewise, Jasper never mentions what caused the crescent-shaped scars that mar his jaw, his neck, and his hands. Instead, I tell him of Margaret and Middlebury, and he details some of his wilder adventures with Peter and Charlotte: a car crash in Wichita, an opera in San Francisco, sailing the Chesapeake in a stolen sloop. We speak only of what little good we experienced, and the conversation feels shot with holes — unspoken gaps of misery and despair.

I ache to know about his past, about the scars, about the dead look I had so often seen in his eyes. I may know the present and have glimpses of the future, but the past was what really changed him, and he guards these secrets even more closely than I guard my own.

The train shudders to a stop and, ever the gentleman, Jasper helps me into my coat. "An interesting way to travel," he observes with a half smile as he shrugs on his own jacket. "It feels good not to be covered in leaves and dirt."

I laugh. "Running around in the rain when you're dressed as well as I am is not only an insult to Dior, but an affront to fashion in general."

He opens the compartment door for me, and touches the fabric of my coat as I pass, brushing a hand over the soft black fur that lines the collar. "You _are_ dressed exceptionally well. I've seen Charlotte in some very lovely clothes, I must say, but never anything like this."

I swallow hard, unable only to comprehend anything but the fact that he is very nearly touching me. Except for the brief moment when he held my hand in the diner, he hasn't touched me at all. The small amount of contact now feels like air to dying lungs. It takes all the willpower I have not to whirl around and launch myself into his arms.

"I'll have you in designer looks in no time, just you wait," I say lightly, turning away before I make a fool out of myself.

"Is this before or after we hunt?"

Though his voice is casual, I can hear the strain behind his words. I look back to see that the purple bruises around his eyes are even more pronounced, and his eyes are so dark that they look almost freakish. He is thirsty, very thirsty. A glance out the train windows reveals a platform full of humans. I can smell the blood already, and can hear the pounding of hearts, the thrum of liquid running through veins. Beside me, Jasper flinches like he's in pain; his jaw is flexed so tight that the muscle in his cheek is twitching.

I place a gentle hand on his arm. "We'll hunt immediately. There's a park near the station that always has a few deer. If you're still willing to try?"

He nods silently, and I realize that he is holding his breath. He glances down at my hand on his arm, and then into my eyes. A warm shock moves through me before I peel my hand away and tuck a strand of hair behind my ear. "I'll try to get us through the crowd as fast as possible. Keep holding your breath, and try not to touch anyone."

We step off the train together and onto the platform. Jasper is rod-straight and wide-eyed beside me, his mouth held in a grimace. The odor of human blood is intense after such a long interval of smelling nothing but Jasper's cool cedar scent. Even my own control is a little shaky with the number of warm human bodies brushing past. I watch Jasper out of the corner of my eye and realize that his thirst has reached the breaking point; he is swallowing rapidly and staring at the surrounding humans with far too much intent.

I grab the sleeve of his jacket and steer him out of the train station, obstinately ignoring a woman I know from church: Louisa, a gossipy old thing who likes to nitpick William's sermons after service. I watch her eyes widen at the sight of Jasper, and realize that the whole town will know of his presence within the hour. Wonderful.

Instead of going directly through town, I lead him through the snowy backwoods the long way around. No one should be out here this time of year, not in this heavy of a snowfall. I check the future several times though, just to assure myself that there would be no human blood shed. All I see is a snapshot of Jasper crouched over a solitary doe. He is silent beside me now, crunching through the snow with stiff steps, his hands clenched white-knuckled at his side. Resisting the humans at the train station was more difficult for him than I thought it would be, and somehow I get the sense that he feels ashamed of this.

"Give it some time," I say, echoing Carlisle's words from my first vision of him and Esme. "It'll be hard in the beginning. There will be mistakes. All I can ask is that you try."

He gives me a ghost of a smile, and opens his mouth to speak, but I instantly put a hand out to stop him. "There," I say, barely above a whisper.

A doe is slipping between the bare trees in front of us, her hooves making quiet crunching noises as she walks. When we pause, she lifts her head up to stare at us, her ears twitching in silent evaluation.

Jasper leans forward, then stops. "How?"

The question stumps me. "Like you'd hunt a human, I suppose? Give chase and tackle?"

The sideways smile I love curves up on his face. "Chase and tackle isn't exactly my style, darlin'. I normally get my prey with very little effort."

Despite the horrifying context of his words, I am lost the moment he calls me darlin'. That, combined with the devastating smile, is enough to make me dizzy with love. Far too late, and far too loudly, I let out a giddy little laugh.

The doe jerks up at the sound and bolts. Without the slightest hesitation, Jasper leans forward and charges after her. His run is fast and catlike, almost soundless, and like nothing I've ever seen. The amount of focused aggression actually startles me, and I watch from the treeline, frozen. In less than four seconds he has her down, his teeth biting into her neck. His fingers tighten over the fur as he drinks, and my mouth falls open slightly. The sight of Jasper crouched down, sucking blood from an animal fills me with a insane amount of lust. Both bloodlust and physical lust.

This is a danger that hadn't occurred to me before: the sight of Jasper feeding automatically incites me to do the same. If he were to "slip" in front of me with a human, I don't know if I could stop myself from following suit. Disconcerted, I spin around and hunt on my own, ten times thirstier than I'd been before.

After finding and draining my own doe, I return to Jasper and find the carcass already hidden — clearly that part of the hunt is something he is already familiar with. The snow around him is spotless; not even a pinprick of red on the ground. The purple bruises around his eyes have gentled, and his black irises now have a soft gleam of color — not quite gold, but not the vibrant ruby-red I had seen before. He is staring down at his hands with a strange expression, like he's waiting for something to happen.

"You okay?"

He nods faintly, and my stomach jumps when his eyes move up to meet mine. "It's just... the first time that I've not felt... remorse afterwards. Instead I feel... wonderful." He laughs. "Don't get me wrong, it tasted terrible. But no guilt. Not a whit."

I grin. "Wait until you try a bear."

"Today?"

His enthusiasm is impossible to resist, and I throw my head back into a laugh. "If you'd like. I thought I'd show you around town first, though. At least the house. It's not much, but I'm obscenely proud of it."

"Alright. Show me your world then," he says, his eyes lighter than I'd ever seen. "I'm all yours."

_All mine_, my heart delights. Words are merely words, of course, and could mean everything or nothing depending on the feeling behind them. But I keep this simple sentence, and the joyful way he says it, bound in my heart like a confirmation. _All mine_, I repeat, as we walk through the snowy forest together, hands inches apart. All mine.

***

Alice's house is just as fairytale-perfect as the rest of her: a brick two story home covered in a pristine layer of snow. It has a white front porch with a little swing, and a long yard surrounded by snowy maples. I am strangely excited to see the inside of it, to see another part of her, however abstract. What colors does she like? What books does she own? Is she neat, messy, or somewhere in between? I already know that the house will be saturated with her scent — all the things her graceful hands have touched and made. For a moment, I beat my conscience back and allow myself to imagine what living with her here would be like. Would we sit on her white porch swing in the evenings? Would she lean her head on my shoulder while I read Dickens out loud, laughing at the good parts, holding my hand during the bad ones?

It isn't possible, I know. Not in my world. Not with my life and my luck. But it's a secret dream, hidden away unseen, even as I tell myself and know in my core that I'll eventually have to leave her.

Halfway up the snowy walk, Alice suddenly turns. Her emotion drains completely and then refills a second later — a vision. I worry at first that she has seen my feeble, self-serving decision to leave, but she merely looks annoyed. "Oh, dear."

"What?"

"I'm sorry about this. Really sorry. In advance. You might want to stop breathing — there are a few humans coming around the corner."

I trust her enough to stop breathing the moment she suggests it. Even though I'd just drained a deer not but ten minutes ago, my thirst is still blistering, and I know I'm dangerously on edge. Alice opens the front door of her home and all but shoves me inside, shutting the screen door behind me. My arm tingles where she pushed me; I almost want to barge back onto the porch, just to give her another reason to touch me. Instead, I stare through the screen door with an ironic smile — as if this flimsy mesh could stop me anyway.

I can't see the humans yet, but I can detect three heartbeats on the other side of Alice's sugar maples. As they round the bend, I catch the whispered clucking sounds women make when they talk over one another with gossip. One voice rises above the others slightly, and I can feel the emotion of irritation mixed in with the suspicion and excitement of the others.

"—Far be it for me to suggest that you're wrong, Louisa dear. But I know my Angel better than that. If there _is_ a man in her house, it isn't because she's fixing to turn scarlet. No one is more resistant to male charms than that girl. You know Clive Bledsoe, that handsome politician from Montpelier? She about threw a fit when he came calling. Hissed like a stable cat when he tried to kiss her hand at dinner."

I glance at Alice out of the corner of my eye. I don't know who this Clive Bledsoe is, but I suddenly feel like hunting him down and ripping his lips off.

"All I'm saying is, it's just not _right_ for a young girl like that to stay single. Not natural. Why, when I was her age, I had a full dance card at every social."

"Speaking of scarlet," the irritated one mutters under her breath.

The three women come into view now, tromping noisily through the snow of Alice's yard. All three are older, with varying shades of grey hair. One is full of eager, jealous curiosity, clutching a dish of human food covered in tinfoil, one is staring at the house with blatant suspicion, and the other just crosses her arms, looking annoyed with them both. They all spot Alice standing on the porch and stop clucking as if on cue.

The one carrying the dish steps forward with a pretentious little wave. "Christmas tidings, Alice honey! How _ever_ are you?"

I step backwards into the shadows of the house, where none of them can see me, and watch Alice's reaction in amusement. She remains on the porch and smiles brightly, as if she hadn't just head every word they said. "Hello Louisa. Annaline. Margaret."

She says the last name with a bit of a twinkle, and I look at the irritated curly-haired woman with new understanding. This was the woman who had taken Alice in when she first came to Middlebury. That would explain her abrupt behavior toward the other two — she was being protective of Alice. She stands now with her arms still crossed, one eyebrow raised, looking very much ready for a brawl.

Louisa's eager eyes rove over the darkened windows of the house. "I saw that you'd just come in on the train, and thought I'd bring you over a casserole. It is Christmas Eve, after all, and you must be tired after your travels. No woman likes to cook when she's tired! Will you be dining alone?"

Margaret rolls her eyes. "What Louisa would like to ask, Angel, is if you've got a man in that house of yours."

Louisa takes it in stride, acting as if the thought had just occurred to her. "Oh yes, that handsome fellow who was with you on the platform! Is he here? Fine looking man, I must say. Tall as a church steeple. He—oh." Her voice drops off with an obvious gasp as I step forward and open the screen door. "Oh my."

"Ma'am. Ladies."

All three of them blink. "Oh my," Louisa repeats, fluttering a hand at her throat.

Alice doesn't glance back at me, but she puts her hand out slightly as if to tell me to stop. I get the odd sense that she isn't protecting _them_ from _me_, but the other way around. Her little shoulders are set in something like defensiveness, and jealousy seeps out of her. "This is Jasper. He's my..." she fishes around for the right word, "cousin. He'll be staying with me for awhile while he... looks for a job."

All three merely blink again, and Louisa takes in a shaky breath. "Oh my."

There is a long, awkward pause. None of them move. I realize that unless I do something about it, these women will probably stand knock-kneed in the yard forever, gawking at me like a circus freak. I sigh. Not only am I uncomfortable having to hold my breath for so long, but I only have so much time here and I want to be alone with Alice. Fighting off a glare, I send a crushing wave of lethargy toward them, not even bothering to be subtle about it. All three of them, and even Alice, sway as if physically hit with exhaustion.

Her gold eyes blink several times, and she grips the porch rail tightly. "...Thank you for the casserole, Louisa. That was very thoughtful of you to come all the way out here, I'm sure. But you know, Jasper and I, we've been traveling all day, and well, it's hard to sleep on a train. As soon as I put him up in the _guest bedroom_," she stresses these last words with a stern look. "I imagine we'll both need to catch up on our rest."

"That means 'go away,' Louisa," Margaret says tiredly, grabbing her friend by the arm. "No gossip to be found here— nothing wrong with family visiting during the holidays. Pleasure to meet you, Jasper. Annaline, a hand?"

Both women tuck their arms around Louisa and attempt to drag her away. She only stares at me with a dazed sort of look. "Of course. You... you just give us a ring if you need anything, then. We're real friendly around here. Real friendly. If you need... anything, anything at all... you just go on and give me call."

I wait until they edge around the wall of sugar maples to speak. "That was interesting."

"Welcome to Middlebury," Alice says with sigh. "The other two aren't bad— Margaret's wonderful, of course. But Louisa is known for two things: gossip, and men. Her husband died about five years ago, and ever since she's been on the prowl. She prefers them young and handsome, so I suppose you're just her type."

"She looked like she wanted to eat me."

Alice glares into the distance, and again I feel the curious sting of jealousy in her aura. "She wanted to do more than that, I'm sure," she mutters darkly. "That was odd, though, what happened before they left. Did you notice? All of the sudden all three of them just sort of... shut down. I felt it too. It was like we'd all been drugged."

"Oh, that." I pause, unsure how to tell her. She'd explained her own gift of seeing the future right away, but I had refrained from mentioning my own until now. The emotions emanating from her just felt so... wonderful. Open, warm, unguarded. It was so unlike anything I'd felt, especially from Peter and Charlotte who knew my gift well and tended to veil themselves around me. Part of me was afraid that once I told Alice about my ability, she'd close up too.

"I have a talent as well," I admit slowly. "I'm able to sense and control the emotions around me."

"Of humans?"

I nod. "And our kind."

Dread fills the air around me, until I'm completely drowning in it. "You can sense emotion?" she asks faintly.

"I try to give others their privacy as much as I can, but it's impossible for me not to sense the emotion of someone near me. It isn't something I can shut off or ignore." I wince at the amount of fresh horror surrounding her, and scramble to recover my good-standing. "_Controlling_, emotions though, is a choice. For the most part, I try to refrain from doing that, unless it's just calming someone down a little when they reach the threshold of panic or anger. For instance, you're... fairly horrified right now, so..."

I sweep a sudden wave of calm over her, voiding out the horror and humiliation, and watch her eyes soften. Gracefully, she sits down on the porch step and wraps her arms around her mid-section. "Oh."

Abruptly, as I had feared, all of the glorious emotions that had been coursing through her before are cut off. Aside from my induced calm, the only things left are fear, embarrassment, and caution. The absence of her joy makes me even sadder than I thought it would. I am surprised by how much I want, _need_, to see her smile. Alice somehow just isn't _Alice_ when she isn't beaming with happiness and life. I sit beside her on the step, practically towering over her petite frame. I want to put an arm around her, but I'm honestly a little afraid of what the combination of my desperation and her sadness would do.

Instead, I shade my eyes and squint into the distance. "Wasn't there a house you wanted to show me around here somewhere? And wasn't there talk of bears, too?"

She glances sideways at me and gives me a glimmer of a smile. "If you're trying to cheer me up, it won't work."

"Yes it will."

She laughs and stands up, brushing herself off. "We'll start with the house rules, then. Rule number one: Alice is always right. Even if you think you're right and she's wrong, you're wrong. She's always right. It may be possible to be _simultaneously_ right, but according to nature, you can only be right if she is too."

I follow her in through the front door and wait as she flicks on the hall light. "Do I dare ask if there's a rule number two?"

Something like a half-smirk curves up on her face. "No, that's pretty much the only rule you'll need."

The house layout is very open, despite its small size. A kitchen and a large living room make up the first floor, and up the stairs are two bedrooms and a bathroom. She keeps it neat, I notice, very neat, almost like a display home. The hardwood floors are shining, the tabletops are free of dust, and nothing is out of place. I think of Peter and Charlotte, and their magpie tendency to pile stolen objects haphazard all over a room. They'd be shocked and impressed to see such organization.

With a great deal of endearing excitement, Alice opens the first upstairs door to reveal a light, wood-paneled room. The first thing I see is the window: an enormous wall-length bay with a view of a deepening red sky and rolling white hills. There is no bed — only a roll-top desk, a plush leather reading chair, and a wall full of bookshelves. Writing supplies and reference books are neatly stacked on the desk, along with a spotless typewriter. It all has a new feel to it, as if she had just bought it all a month ago or less. The bookshelves, though, are curiously empty. I look to her in question.

"Your room," Alice says lightly, dusting a hand over the desk. "It isn't much, and we'll have to bring in a bed or at least a cot in order to appease the church ladies, but it's at least it's your own space. I left the bookshelves empty on purpose... I thought you'd like to decide what to fill them with."

Never, in all my life, have I felt anything like I did in that moment — standing next to Alice in a room that she had made for me. When I turn to look at her and find her eyes glowing with happiness, I have no breath and certainly no words. A simple "thank you" seems appallingly inadequate.

"I don't know what to say," I finally manage, in a dry, humble voice. I touch the typewriter like one might touch a holy relic. "I hope you're not expecting to spend a lot of time with me, because I may never leave this room."

She laughs. "If that was supposed to be a compliment, I think you missed your mark. Come on, now— you can spend the rest of eternity in here if you want. But first— my room."

Her room is directly across the hallway, and much smaller room than mine. It is surprisingly simple, free of the usual knickknacks and lace that I'd seen in other female bedrooms. The walls are bare, and the only thing to suggest wealth is the richness of fabric on the curtains and the bed, all in varying tones of red and gold, like fresh autumn leaves. I stare at the bed in amusement, noting that it takes up most of the room — an amazingly large sleeping space for a woman who is a) very small, and b) incapable of sleeping.

"Why a bed, if you never sleep?"

A puzzling amount of humiliation floods through her before she can stop it. She averts her eyes from mine and gives a carefree little shrug. "All part of the act, of course. We have to keep up appearances. I have a kitchen too, in case you missed that. And—" she dances to the side of the room and throws open a door. "A _closet_!"

In the tiny space provided, she has managed to cram hundreds of hatboxes, clothes, boots, and heels. It is like an explosion of fabric and color, every shade of the rainbow, every type of texture. For more than an hour, she explains her favorite pieces to me, and I listen with patience and empathy, able to sense, even without my gift, that this is more to her than just a hobby. There is a desperate pride in her voice; as if she somehow believes that this — a room full of dresses and heels, is the only thing that makes her real.

Amidst all of the rich fabrics, fur, and suede, one thing manages to stick out. On the highest shelf (she must have used the stepstool by the door to reach it) is a scrap of worn grey material that looks glaringly out of place. I'm tall enough to reach it, so I take it down and unfold it while Alice opens yet another hatbox. It is a one-piece garment of some sort that ties in three places in the back, a gown like the ones I'd seen hospital patients wear — very old, almost falling apart, with rusty stains at the collar that I recognize as blood.

"What is this?" I ask, holding it out to her.

She freezes upon seeing it, and sadness — deep, deep, sadness, swallows us both whole. The emotion is too thick to fight through; a tremendous swell of loneliness, ache, and longing. It hits me like a physical blow, affecting me so deeply that I can barely stand on my own two feet. I drag the stepstool over and sit instead, leaning over with my arms on my legs, eye-level with Alice as she kneels. She holds the gown in trembling hands and brushes a thumb over one of the bloodstains.

"It isn't a happy story," she says softly, and looks up at me with pleading gold eyes.

I think of wars, of newborns, of killing, and Maria. "Neither is mine."

"Will you share?" she asks, barely a whisper. "The best stories, I think, are the ones that have the darkest beginnings and the hardest fights. It makes the ending that much sweeter— more like a victory than anything."

My story is the last thing I want to tell her. It feels a little like explaining a nightmare to a dream, except worse, much worse. Because I know that as soon as she sees me for what I really am, as soon as she hears what I've done, she won't even want to share the same country with me, let alone share the same house... the same life. I can already imagine the look of horror and disgust on her pretty face. The fear when she realizes what a danger I am. The disappointment when she sees I'm not the man she thought.

_But it's better for it to be now_, I think. Better for her to tell me to leave before I get too comfortable and too attached. Before quiet evenings spent reading on the white front porch. Before the empty bookshelves have a chance to be filled. All of these things are dreams, secret hopes, like the ancient spruce twig still tucked away in my jacket pocket. And all of these things could be taken away in an instant, in one breath.

"I'll share if you'll share," I agree quietly. "But it's not like a book, Alice. You need to know that. There is no happy ending for me, and no redemption."

She inclines her head slightly. "Margaret always says that God only writes redemption stories. Maybe your story, and mine too... maybe they _don't_ have unhappy endings. Maybe they just aren't over yet."

"A work in progress," I say, and ache with all my heart to believe it.

She smiles. "A story that's just begun."

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**A/N:** That was a rather long chapter that kind of got serious there at the end. I suppose that's what I get for drinking wine and listening to film scores while writing. The quote "God only writes redemption stories" comes courtesy of my wise and wonderful best friend, who could put Hallmark out of business if she ever chose to use her powers for good instead of evil.


	12. Secrets

**Secrets**

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Maria.

I grow to hate that name, and everything it stands for.

He mentions her name many times that first night, casually, but each time I hear those three simple syllables it's like a slap in the face. The meeting at the roadside. The excruciating pain of his change. Newborn battles, newborn training. Monterrey, Reynosa, Houston. I clench my teeth together when he explains seeing Maria for the first time, and details her exceptional beauty. I imagine this perfect, goddess-like woman who is everything I am not, this woman who Jasper's life revolved around for as many years as I have been alive. I know they must have been romantically involved — I can hear it in his voice and read it between the context of his careful words. He uses plural form often in regards to her: "_we_ held Monterrey" , "_we_ built up the army" , "_we_ lost all the newborns at once."

I despise her.

When he finishes his long, heartbreaking story, the one that overshadows mine like an ocean of blood in comparison to a droplet — when I sit there seething with a raging, gut-wrenching hatred for a demon I've never met, he looks at me with hollow, deadened eyes.

"You're angry with me," he says flatly, and presses his lips together for a long moment. His quiet voice is steady and grim, even though his hands are shaking. "Do you want me to leave?"

His simple question shocks me. Terrifies me. "No!" I burst out before I can help it. "Why would I want you to leave?"

He just stares at me for a moment, and then, wordlessly, gestures at himself, at his red-tinged eyes, at the scars that cover his jaw and his neck, as if this explains everything. And I realize in horror that he had felt my hatred and wrongly assigned it to himself. He actually thought that I hated him for this — for what he was forced by Maria and by nature to do. I breathe out in regret, and my stomach tightens with grief and compassion at the wounded, walking-dead look in his eyes.

"Jasper," I whisper softly. "Jasper, no. That's not it— not at all. I'm not angry with you." Because the words don't feel like enough, I reach for his hand. He flinches when I touch him, but I swallow the hurt and brush a thumb along his scarred skin. "And I don't want you to leave." _Not ever_.

He is confused. "Then... what?"

"I hate..." I trail off, unable to even speak her name. "I hate what happened to you."

_And_ _I hate her_, I think silently, _for everything she made you into, and for the years she kept you and loved you and touched you, while I was on my own, alone._

In the days that follow that first night, It's hard for me to think of anything else. _Maria_, my mind repeats endlessly, jealous to a fault. _Maria_. I wonder if she's the reason why Jasper so carefully avoids touching me, and why he always seems to freeze when I put my hand on his. I wonder if she is the one who taught him everything he knows: the history of the Volturi, the inner-workings of a coven, the marked behaviors of our kind. I wonder if she once spent an evening showing him how to forge papers and pick locks, long before he ever managed to show me. And when he stares at me sometimes, for just a fraction of a second too long, I wonder if he's wishing that I were someone else — the beautiful, scarlet-eyed woman he left behind in Mexico.

_Do you miss her?_ I long to ask, but feel too afraid to. _Did you love her?_

Instead I let the questions burn inside of me, along with all the feelings I can't feel anymore the words I won't allow myself to speak. In the shadow of Maria, I feel more uncertain than ever; a weak, plain little entity in comparison to the one who changed him and owned him for decades before I'd even seen his face.

For the those first few months in Middlebury, we stay mostly to ourselves.

Jasper isn't eager to test himself with the human population yet, and the visions I do see are not favorable. We hunt every day instead, and though he doesn't like the taste of animal blood in any way shape or form, I begin to see a difference in him. At first it's just his eyes — I feel a slight pang of regret as the familiar ruby-red color I have seen for years in visions fades into the same honey gold of mine own. But I find I am prouder of this new shade; I know what it costs him and what it means to his heart.

When his eyes finally warm into a steady amber, his demeanor begins to change as well. His movements become less restrained and his speech becomes less hesitant. The habitual frown and sad smile are gone, replaced with a look of contentment and the occasional full-fledged grin. He begins to take a bright-eyed interest in the world around him, and talks to me with a greater freedom about everything, including his human life before change.

I am fascinated that he remembers. "Tell me everything," I say to him, and I mean it. Did he sleep? Did he dream? What does a broken bone feel like? What does human food taste like? Did he ever get tired? How fast could he run? Did he have a family? What were they like? Does he miss them? Does he think of them? Where did they live and what was their house like and what did they do for a living and for fun?

He answers my onslaught of questions the best that he can, but sometimes has to struggle to remember. Like me, there are blank spots in his memories, parts that have faded grey with age and time. The few things he does remember though, he remembers well, and recounts with a young, affectionate expression that I grow to love more than any other.

He teaches me how to sing his favorite silly Christmas Carols and how to make a snowman, how to sled down a white-covered hill. I learn snow angels and snowball fights, and how to skate over the rough ice of a frozen lake. When he recalls baking we spend an eventful night trying to figure out my oven, eventually producing six dozen batches of blackened chocolate chip cookies. And when the weather clears and the snow melts into spring, he teaches me how to shoot a shotgun and how to track the ground for animals, how to paddle a canoe and how to steer a boat. I learn how to make flower chains and how to whistle on a blade of grass, how to carve little figures out of pine. And on a warm sunny day with not a single human in sight, we make fishing poles out of two fine saplings head out to Ripton Creek with a bucket full of nightcrawlers.

"This is disgusting, you know," I say petulantly, as I pierce my sharpened hook through a live, wriggling worm. "Positively barbaric."

Jasper laughs, and I love the sound of it echoing off the water. "I just saw you tackle and eat a black bear less than twenty minutes ago, and now you're getting squeamish about a worm?"

"I didn't have to shove a _hook_ through the bear's _eye_."

"Women," he mutters with a shake of his head. The sunlight beaming through the leafy trees speckles over his skin and makes it shine, distorted by the ridges of his crescent-shaped scars. "As I recall, my sister had a soft spot for the worms too. She used to cry and cover her eyes when I took her down to Mercer Creek to fish for dinner."

"In Houston?"

He nods. "In the woods behind the house." He pauses for a moment, remembering. "I used to love it there, especially in the summer months. The hotter and brighter, the better, as far as I was concerned. God I used to love the sunshine." A strange look crosses his expression, and he bends his head down, concentrating on the silvery fishing line that disappears into the water. "I passed by those woods with Maria once, when we took Houston. We actually crossed the part of Mercer Creek where I used to fish. It was dark, though... and colder than I remembered."

I clench my hands tight around my fishing pole, a sick ball of jealousy and pain in my stomach. Maria had seen the place where he'd grown up, the place where he'd spent his happiest human years. Did he teach her how to fish too? Did he help her thread a sapling and show her how to cast? Rage, sick curiosity, and jealousy battle within me like fiends, and a completely unrelated question bursts out of me before I can help it:

"If you were so miserably unhappy, why did it take you so long to leave her?"

Jasper looks surprised and even a little angry at this question, but the fury melts away when he sees the desperate look on my face. His golden eyes soften. "She was all I had," he says simply, after a long silence. "However dark and miserable, she was all I knew."

_Did you love her? _I want to ask, and almost do. It is a stone-weighted mystery on my heart, outbalanced only by the one other question, the most important question, the one that lies beneath everything I say and do: _do you love __me_?

But my line tugs and the sapling dips toward the water, and suddenly we are both laughing and yelling and splashing around in the creek — as if the conversation had never taken place, as if I hadn't come dangerously close to asking the question that could either send him running or bring him straight into my arms. Instead it is only a sparkling afternoon with jokes and laughs and fishing, and talk of lighter brighter things that aren't attached to hurt. Our demons are momentarily pinned back to the shadows, where they watch with steely-eyed waiting as we catch fish after fish, soak each other with splashing, and lay out on the green grass to dry.

We come back with over fifteen trout that day, and Margaret and William eat nothing but fish for the next month and a half.

I find my days are louder now, filled of the sound of Jasper's typewriter and Jasper's showering and Jasper's hand as he turns the page of an old book. I learn to listen for the sound of him pacing above me as I sew a new piece in the parlor, and wait in giddy anticipation for his footsteps on the stairs when he comes to ask me a question. I come to recognize each tone of his voice; even as stoic as he is, there is always an undercurrent of intense feeling hidden beneath. I learn and identify each one of his laughs: from polite to mischievous to booming hysterics, and each one of his unique little noises — a growl of frustration when he doesn't understand something, a silent little sigh when he's content. And after he discovers a toolbox in the abandoned shed behind the house, I become familiar with yet another, more prevailing noise:

_Thwack. _

It startles me so badly the first time that I prick myself with my sewing needle and nearly fall out of my chair.

_Thwack. Thwack. Thwack. _It shatters the still quiet of early morning as loud as church bells, as loud as exploding glass. Utterly confused, I stalk downstairs and throw the front door open, where I find Jasper crouched over the porch railing with a hammer, nailing a piece of fresh wood to the side of the house. He is wearing his old leather cowboy boots, faded jeans and an unbuttoned flannel shirt, and looks so inhumanely sexy that my stomach drops about ten feet at the sight of him.

_Thwack. Thwack. Thwack. Thwack. Thwack-thwack-thwack._

"What in _God's_ name are you doing?"

Jasper pauses in mid hammer-stroke. "Being useful?"

"It is four o'clock in the _morning_," I hiss, unsure whether I'm irritated by the noise or by my own horrendously inappropriate thoughts.

He seems to find my observation exceptionally amusing, and points the hammer at me. "You know, you're awfully sensitive about hours for someone who doesn't sleep."

"I'm used to being quiet at night," I say imperiously. "Everyone else is sleeping."

"Well, _we're_ not asleep. So I might as well find something constructive to do. I can't manipulate the stock market or design a new line of fall jackets, like _some_ people—" He gives me a devastating smile. "—so I'm falling back on the things I know."

"Hammering," I say flatly.

"And sawing, and sanding, and nailing, and other very manly pursuits. You can help if you'd like, I have another hammer in the toolbox. As soon as I get this last piece in place, I'm going to prime it and paint it. And then I thought I'd head on up to the roof and do some repairs on that slope over the attic. There were some damp spots up there when I checked, and that can lead to trouble." He hooks the back of the hammer on his belt and takes in my blank, bewildered expression. "What?"

"I didn't know you were so... versatile," I say archly, even as my heart twists fondness at the sight of his sideways smile. He just looks so damn handsome standing there with his hair all a mess and dirt smudged across cheeks and nose. I incline my head when he makes a face at me, and raise a delicate brow. "Shouldn't you be in the study somewhere, stoop-shouldered and learning about algorithms?"

He walks by me toward the shed, easing one shoulder up into a shrug. "The study won't be very comfortable when the roof caves in, now will it?"

Not only does he fix the roof, but he builds an entirely new porch, re-grouts the bricks near the foundation, paints the shed, and puts up a sturdier mailbox. I walk into my bedroom at one point to find him half-hanging out the window with a level and a tape measurer, drawing up plans for a balcony I couldn't possibly need or use. And just when I think it's all over with and he's finally satisfied with the expansions and the fixtures, and the flooring, he heads out to the far reaches of the property with talk of fences and landscape.

"That boy sure is eager to please," Margaret observes one cloudy afternoon, as we drink sweet tea on Jasper's newly built porch swing, watching as he strides across the yard with a shovel in one hand and a bag of cement in the other. "I bet he'd build you a castle if you asked for it." We watch as he jogs back for the first half of what looks to be a wooden archway. "Probably even if you didn't."

"Please," I mutter darkly. "Don't give him any ideas." I feel unnaturally hot at the way his muscles stand out when he picks up the shovel and starts digging a hole near the front walk.

Margaret turns a keen gaze on me. "You know why he's doing this, don't you?"

I'd assumed it was restlessness: his frustration at being stuck in boring Middlebury for so long after a life of constant excitement and movement, but I don't say that to Margaret. I don't know how. Instead, I only shake my head.

She sniffs out a humorless laugh. "Thirty years of taking in strays, and I've learned a thing or two about atonement," she says, watching Jasper work. "He's feverishly trying to make up for something— probably some ancient sin that wasn't even his, some awful atrocity that likely wasn't even his fault. And this... all the repairing and building and helping and teaching... this is the only way he knows how to atone. He isn't just saying 'I'm sorry' on one count, honey. He's trying to apologize for even existing."

I turn back to Jasper with a new ache, and think of his face the night he told me about his past, about Maria. The hollow tone in his voice when he asked me if I wanted him to leave. I think of the times when he stares at me sometimes, with an emotion like longing in his eyes, even as blurry visions of him walking away filter through my mind. "I can't decide," I say softly, "whether he actually wants to leave, or whether he thinks he doesn't deserve to stay."

Margaret raises an eyebrow. "If you don't know that, Angel, you're blinder than I thought."

I look down and take another pretend sip of tea. Margaret seems much more relaxed about my personal life these days — as if she can see the future better than even I can.

Jasper joins me on the porch after she leaves, freshly showered and carrying A Tale of Two Cities. As the sunlight fades and the summer insects buzz around the amber porch light, he reads out loud in his slow, wonderful drawl. I curl on the porch swing beside him, not quite touching him, but close enough to feel the current between us. I look out at the silhouetted sugar maples, feathered black against a creamsicle sky, and realize that I've never been happier than I am in this moment. Never more quietly content, never more at peace, never more at home. Jasper moves to turn the page and glances down at me with a smile, his eyes warm. My chest aches deliciously, on fire with something hot and unbearable, but I stifle the emotion and hold it back, a secret I dare not speak.

I don't yet know how to love without a governing fear. Fear of rejection, fear of abandonment, fear of the scarlet-eyed woman who held him so long and so tightly, before me. And most of all, worst of all, is the blank terror that at any moment now, any heartbeat of a second, I will wake up in the mirror room again, lost, scared, and alone.

I close my eyes as Jasper reads on, and search for it — the vision that anchors me to sanity and to the earth. The sunset, the porch swing, and Jasper's smooth voice all disappear in a blur of lightheaded emptying, pouring out beneath me as I move into the most certain future I know:

Jasper's eyes, now brilliant gold and tender, stare into me with such tenderness, such love, that I can scarcely catch my breath. I feel the soft touch of his thumb in the hollow beneath my ear, his cool fingers on my neck.

"_Alice_," he says, nothing more.

This simple vision, this one snapshot of a moment, is all I will ever need. The future fades away into the glow of amber light, and I am back on the porch swing again, my head somehow cradled in Jasper's lap. He doesn't touch me back, but he doesn't push me away either, and for me, for now, it seems enough. He reads without pause and I listen, clutching the secret held tight against my heart. I am waiting, simply waiting, with a quiet, burning hope. It flickers there in silence, bathed in amber light, warmed by the gentle cadence of his voice.

***

Secrets.

I keep many of them over the next six months, hidden behind a towering wall of fear and pessimism. The days I spend with Alice are the brightest, purest, most beautiful days I've ever spent. It feels like someone else's life, someone else's perfect existence. I laugh more than I've ever laughed. I talk more than I've ever talked. I smile so much that it becomes automatic — a twitch at the corner of my mouth whenever Alice enters the room. I begin to believe in things I never thought possible. I begin to believe in things I know I shouldn't. And yet, even in the face of such happiness, these perfect days are also filled with the things we don't say.

Our respective talents terrify each other. I am hesitant to make any decision, and Alice is uncommonly guarded and impassive. There are moments, brilliant moments, when both of us slip — times when we're laughing or running and get too close or too open. And then, as skittish as a pair of deer, both of us pull away.

The things we don't say build and build, until it begins to feel like this terrible storm that's just waiting to break.

But despite my resistance, and despite my guarded warnings, Alice becomes my best and dearest friend. I share things with her that I've never shared with anyone, not even Peter, not even my family so long ago. Because her eyes are so understanding and so alive, I even dare to voice my dreams, and wait in terror as she considers them. But she takes my desire to write Civil War history and attend an Ivy League university in stride.

"Of course," she says, as if these are the simplest things in the world for a bloodthirsty vampire with no credentials and no formal education. "Why do you think I bought you the typewriter? Get writing, and I'll make some phone calls and get us both enrolled for fall curriculum. Harvard? Dartmouth? Brown? Princeton?"

My head spins. "Maybe we should think about this first—"

"Come on, Jazz," she says with a laugh over her shoulder. "Live a little."

She calls me 'Jazz,' and I love it. The first time she says it, so casually and naturally, my heart very nearly melts. Had I ever had a nickname before? Had anyone ever felt comfortable enough, affectionate enough, to call me something like that? She uses the nickname the most when she's excited about something, and I begin to associate it with her bright golden eyes and quick hands, the shape of warm red lips that never stop moving.

I watch her often, out of the corner of my eye as she makes even the simplest tasks seem like magic. I love the way her eyes skim the pages of the glossy magazine she loves, and the way she dances while she dusts around me in the study. Because of her, I spend more days outside in the sunshine than I have in my entire vampire existence — just to watch the glittering of her white skin beneath her shock of soft black hair. I pretend to read while she lies on her stomach and sketches in the yard, her eyes riveted on the paper. I love her intent, narrowed expression, and wait in knowing anticipation for the moment when her lips begin to curve, because she's managed to create perfection.

She _is_ perfection, in a way that I never have been and never will be.

And it isn't just her outrageous beauty, or the melody of her voice — it's the way she _cares_. About Margaret, about William, about the townspeople, about her mysterious coven of amber-eyed vampires, about everyone... about _me_. She wants to be good, she wants to make a difference, and she does it all just as effortlessly as breathing, simply by just being herself. It's in the way she smiles and in the way she determinedly takes up the tasks and problems of others. The way she so seriously listens, even when she doesn't have to. Before Alice, I never knew what it meant to be generous and loving. Before Alice, I never what it meant to live.

I allow her to take me on as a makeover project, outfitting me in stylish new jackets, suits, fedoras, suspenders, and slacks. I insist on cowboy boots instead of loafers, to which she rolls her eyes, but obliges. Days later a shipment of alligator boots arrives from Texas, in enough varying shades and styles to stock a small department store.

"You think you might be overdoing it, darlin'?" I ask, holding up a lone red boot I know I'll never wear.

Alice raises an eyebrow. "Have you seen how many shoes _I _have?"

I only laugh. She has a point.

I haul my tools up to the attic that day and start building shelves. For weeks on end, I hammer and saw, tear up old floorboards, and put up mirrors. It feels almost like a penance, what I'm doing — like somehow building her the most beautiful closet ever seen by man will make up for all I am and all I'll never be able to be. At first, Alice is puzzled by my strange determination, but then she takes the project on as her own and joins me. We throw the windows open to let the sunlight in, and Alice sings as she follows me with a tape measurer and a dustpan. We laugh about nothing and talk about everything, taking occasional breaks to watch the sunset or go over sketches and plans.

She brings up the radio on a warm August day when yellow light spills in and filters through the dust motes. We listen to Frank Sinatra and Billie Holliday, both of us covered in white paint and sawdust, Alice swaying on the spot while I try not to drip paint on my red cowboy boots.

"Do you know how to dance?" she asks me, spinning around in a shaft of light, her eyes glowing.

I try not to think of how my arms ache to hold her around the waist. I try not to imagine how her slim body would feel pressed up against my own, her graceful hand in mine. "I do, yes."

"Teach me?"

This is dangerous, I know, very dangerous. But she is just so incomparably beautiful standing there with her arms held out and her head slightly tilted, all aglow in summer light. Everything around us seems to grow very, very still, and suddenly, before I even realize what I'm doing, I have her in my arms. I place my palm on her waist, and hold my hand out for hers, shuddering when her cool fingers brush against my shoulder and my neck. Her soft hand wraps around mine, our palms fitted perfectly together. My entire body feels afire, burning with some wild thing that is half-fear and half-joy as she stares at me expectantly. It takes me a full five seconds to realize that she is waiting for me to move. I do, numbly, leading her in an easy waltz. Alice looks down at our feet, copying my movements and exposing the silky white curve of her neck.

My mouth goes dry. "See, it's simple," I rasp out, though it's anything but.

Hesitancy and fear surround her a few minutes before she asks, "Who taught you how to dance?"

I hear the question behind the question, and my hand tightens on hers. "My mother."

"Oh," she says, surprised. "So..." But she doesn't finish that sentence and I don't finish it for her. Maria is the last thing I want to think about right now. Because every time I think about Maria, I think about how I need to leave. And right now, dancing with Alice in my arms, leaving seems like a darker hell than I'd ever imagined.

And this is nothing like my last dance with Maria in the ballroom of the Monterrey mansion, when she was dressed in red velvet and black lace, glittering with malice and sensuality. This was simple. This was good. This was Alice. I instruct her with quiet one-two-three, one-two-three's, encouraging her and laughing at the look on her face when I bend her back into a dip. It doesn't matter that there are streaks of white paint in her hair, or that she is wearing a simple cotton dress and flats. This dance with her is suddenly the only dance, the only one that ever mattered, and the warm attic air suddenly feels crowded with words that I cannot say.

_I've been searching for you for years._

_You are more beautiful to me each and every day._

_I have never been so happy._

_I..._

_I..._

Secrets.

I keep them from myself, and I keep them from her too. Every day I tell myself to leave. Every day I tell myself to walk away before I get in too deep, before I fall and she falls and we end up in something we'll never be able to escape from. But then she smiles at me, and she laughs, and she shows me something new, and suddenly I find I can't move — not anywhere, not in any capacity, except in this perfect sunlit dance with her.

* * *

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**A/N:** It all seems so wonderful, doesn't it? Things are going so well that nothing bad could possibly happen to them now, right? Right? Right?? ....


	13. Idyll's End

**Idyll's End**

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October arrives in a red-orange glory, yellowing the still-green maple leaves and cooling the hot summer air. The clouds are crisp and the sky is blue, and Middlebury is suddenly filled with apple pies, hay bales, scarf-knitting, and scarecrows. The yard outside the house is littered with color overnight, and Jasper rakes the leaves into giant piles beside the shrinking sugar maples. He seems to love autumn every bit as much as I do, and we spend more time outside than ever, lying on our backs amidst the softly falling leaves.

I can't name the day or moment, but something changes between us. The tentative giddiness I once felt melts away, replaced by something much fiercer and much harder to ignore. He doesn't say anything about it and neither do I, but try as I might I can't hide it from his talent, and he can't pretend he doesn't feel it too. He tries to keep a firm distance between us, but slips up more and more each day, almost as if his careful barriers are failing on purpose. His every touch now is like the tightening of a coil, and his eyes follow me with a quiet intensity that makes my insides shiver.

We are silently inseparable, staying within eyeshot of each other even as we go about our separate pursuits: he builds while I sketch beside him, I sew while he reads. The only time the two of us are ever apart is when I go to church on Sunday mornings, and even that is difficult to bear. But as willing as he is to oblige me in most ventures, Jasper still finds the idea of attending church ludicrous. Not that he's opposed to church itself — just the risk of him being locked in a quiet, enclosed space with multiple humans.

"What if I kill everyone?" he says flatly, every time I bring up the subject.

I shrug, smiling. "At least we know they'd go to heaven."

The other people in town, Margaret not excluded, had expected Jasper to attend along with me, and there was quite a flurry of gossip when I showed up for that first Sunday alone. Margaret met his absence with closed-mouthed curiosity, but Annaline, Louisa, and the collective group of "hens," as Jasper termed them, assailed me with a tornado of demanding questions: _Did he leave? Is he ill? Is he injured? He isn't the sickly sort, is he? He is a churchgoer, right? Didn't he say he was planning on coming? You did invite him, didn't you?_

"He's… Catholic," I finally say, and they nod as if this explains everything.

But the mood at church changes with the seasons, and by the time October begins to frost the ground, my reception at church is chilly at best. Spearheaded by Louisa and her talk of scandal, the church women and their respective husbands and relatives begin to stare at me like a leper when I take my place next to Margaret in the front pew. Mostly I'm thought of as a harlot, but there are darker rumors now too — whispers of witchcraft and demons and spells. My oddities are now observed through sharper eyes, and people are starting to wonder why I don't age or eat, and why the lights of my house remain on well after midnight. Even the people who used to treat me with affection and pity now eye me with something like caution.

Jasper reacts to all of this with unreasonable anger, growling from deep in his chest whenever someone dodges me on the sidewalk or whispers behind their hand. His posture changes when we walk into town together too, bent slightly forward with his shoulders pulled back, as if he will maul anyone who even looks at me the wrong way.

So after yet another uncomfortable Sunday service, I am not surprised to find him waiting for me outside. Whether this is out of protectiveness or a desire to be near me, I don't know, but I prefer to think the latter. He is learning against the picket fence of the church with his hands in his pockets, looking impossibly handsome in the grey wool coat I made for him two weeks ago. My heart leaps when he flashes me a sideways smile, and I'm not the only one — the church women behind me breathe out a collective sigh. He greets me by wrapping a cranberry-colored scarf around my neck and tugging it once in playfulness.

"All this talk about keeping up human appearances, and you run off and leave your scarf at home."

"I was in a hurry," I say defensively, and tie the scarf into a fashionable knot. "And speaking of keeping up appearances— to what do I owe the honor? Have you finally decided to give up your heathen ways and join us?"

He eases one shoulder up into a shrug. "I heard on the radio that they have a six-acre hay bale maze set up north of Burlington. It sounded interesting, so I thought we could go check it out. Maybe hunt on the way?"

I'm not certain which thrills me more: the fact that he is so content to participate in normal human activities, or the fact that he wants me there with him. But as I wave to Margaret and turn away from the church, a vaguely uncomfortable thought enters my mind, wondering if the emotional climate of Middlebury is such that Jasper feels the need to leave town. But he is smiling at me placidly, and his talent is literally making it impossible for me to feel worried or suspicious. I laugh once, and shake my head at his lack of subtlety.

"Fine, you win. Let's stop by the house first though, so I can change out of—" I break off midsentence when I see a determined grey-dyed-blonde head plowing through the crowd toward Jasper and I, clutching a handful of flyers. It's Louisa, and she's eyeing Jasper with the kind of intent reserved for Serengeti predators. "Great," I mutter, scowling.

Jasper follows my gaze. "Can we run?"

"I'm afraid not. Hello, Louisa."

Louisa thrusts a flyer at me, but doesn't return the greeting. "Alice, I _do_ hope you're planning on coming to the Harvest Festival this year," she says, her eyes still locked on Jasper. "It's a costumed dance, you know— which between you and me, _does_ seem rather Pagan for a church party. But William always has been rather lax about those things, hasn't he? It was Margaret's idea anyway, I'd wager... her way of drawing in the local youth. Lord knows those hellions wouldn't come unless she dangled some token of debauchery in front of them. I swear, that woman will embrace anyone or any_thing_, regardless of propriety."

Her disparaging, gossipy assessment of Margaret infuriates me nearly as much as her eyes roving the length of Jasper's body. But even despite my anger, I can't help but be intrigued by two magical keywords. "A costume party?"

Louisa nods, and fans herself with the flyers. "Maybe your... cousin would like to come as well? Are you opposed to dancing, Jasper? I forget the Catholic stance on that."

"No ma'am." He glances at me sideways, and my body tingles all over, remembering the way we danced together in the sunlit attic.

"Will you come, then? I would just be pleased as peaches to see you there." This time, she actually reaches out and paws at his chest, fluttering her eyelashes like a school girl. Jasper immediately tenses at the contact, and his face changes from mildly amused to pained within the span of half a second. It has been two days since we last hunted, and he isn't practiced enough yet to handle unexpected human touch.

"Perhaps," I say coldly, and stare Louisa down with such a hard look that she backs away. She joins the other church women with a frightened look backwards at us, and immediately begins talking a mile a minute about me and my "moods."

I turn away. I can't pretend that it doesn't hurt. A very small part of me traitorously misses the simple days before Jasper arrived, before jealousy and malice begin to infect a population of people who once looked upon me with such kindness. Things used to be so easy here, so idyllically carefree. But I knew that if it came down to a choice between the townspeople or Jasper, there's no question who I would choose. Even as pleasant as my quiet, unassuming life in Middlebury had been, it was never truly complete. Until now. Until him. As hard as it is to take sometimes, Jasper is worth every look and whispered word.

"We should stick around," I say lightly as we walk away from the church. "Later they'll be burning me in effigy and sprinkling our doorstep with holy water."

Jasper doesn't laugh or even crack a smile; his expression is so serious that it frightens me. "It's not a joke, Alice. Rumors are rumors, but if it turns into much more than this, there's a chance the Volturi will step in."

He doesn't elaborate, but I understand what he means. The thought of the Volturi coming to town and hurting people, hurting Jasper, makes me feel cold all over. One look at the battles scars on his skin, and they would probably execute him on the spot. I tighten the scarf around my neck and wrap my fingers around the soft material, chilled. "It's not going to go that far. I just have to win the population back again somehow. Show them that I'm a respectable, normal citizen who does things like eat, sleep, and attend the yearly Harvest Festival."

"So you _do_ want to go?" He gives me a little smile, and I know he must have caught my earlier excitement at the idea of costumes and dancing.

"A little," I admit sheepishly. "I wouldn't want to go without you, though."

There is another, more secretive reason behind that desire, but not one I'm willing to share. The truth is, Jasper always seems more open after we spend a prolonged amount of time touching; his usual stoicism and guardedness momentarily lift to reveal something much gentler underneath. I imagine that after a whole night of having to touch me, especially in the context of dancing, he'll be on a closer, more intimate level with me than he's ever allowed himself to be. And, like a typical girl, I am already beginning to fantasize about that perfect moment when Jasper will draw me aside for a kiss, a whisper, something, _anything_... anything other than this unbearable, seething tension.

His response is disappointingly unenthusiastic. "I don't know, Alice. Most of my experiences with humans and dancing have been... less than church-friendly."

"We could hunt twice a day beforehand," I suggest, trying to keep the desperation out of my voice. "Build up your tolerance a bit. And if you're worried about being too close to the humans, you could just... not dance with anyone but me."

He smiles at that, and I can tell from his amused expression that I won the argument. "I suppose I could at least try."

I clap my hands together in excitement. "Wonderful! I just got that bolt of damask from Prague, and I have all that extra lace from the veil I made for the woman in Boston. We could be, what, medieval courtiers? Figures of Greek myth? Shakespeare? It's weeks until the Festival and there's really no end to what I can do between now and then." A stationary vision of me surrounded by people with costume requests hits me, and I dance around a bit on the sidewalk, grinning. "This couldn't possibly be more perfect! Nearly everyone in town is going to come to me with a request for the Festival. This is my chance to win them back, Jazz! I'll make those women so beautiful that they won't have any _choice_ but to approve of me."

Jasper just shakes his head and laughs. Affection sweeps through me at the sight of his tousled blonde curls and the dimple in his left cheek, the warm look in his eyes. Sometimes I find it hard to believe that someone so beautiful, so riveting could actually choose to spend his time with me — let alone change a century's worth of habits just because I asked him to. Jasper is under no obligation to stay here with me while I hunt animals, and socialize with humans, and attempt to lead a normal, domesticated life. But he does it all anyway. Half of me really, really wants to ask him why. But an equal half is flat out terrified that his answer won't be the one I want to hear.

"Thank you, Jasper," I say softly. "This— all of this, it means a lot."

He glances down at me for a moment, and then looks away again, his hands in his pockets. "There isn't much I wouldn't do for you."

This quiet statement would have sent me flying, were it not for the strange, sad tone of his voice. His amber-gold eyes are far away and fathomless, and I wonder why his gaze stays locked straight ahead, away from me, somewhere past the horizon.

***

Alice and I run what she jokingly calls "drills" for the next few weeks, staging situations where we I am forced to be in the midst of many humans at once. It doesn't work out well. Even after gorging myself on predators until I feel actually ill, the longest I can hold out in a busy area with humans pressing in on me is thirty minutes — the longest thirty minutes of my life. And that's _without_ breathing. The problem with a church social is just that: it's a social. I have to speak. I have to interact. And in order to do those things, I have to breathe. I am far from optimistic about the situation. I'm dreading both the dance and the possibility of disappointing Alice, practically beside myself with anxiety and fear.

Our latest "drill" today was the post office right before the noon pickup; Alice had me stand in the middle of the busy room while she argued with the postman, and by the end of my thirty minutes I was a ragged mass of nerves. Even without breathing, my throat was still blistering hot and searing with pain, my mouth too full of venom to speak. Feral growls were already beginning to gurgle in my throat when Alice finally motioned for me to leave, and I nearly lunged at some poor woman lugging a package in through the front door.

These near-miss incidents don't help the gossip in the slightest. My unwillingness to interact with the humans, combined with Alice's obvious eccentricity, raises eyebrows and sparks malice. And every time Alice stumbles with a vision in public or knows something she couldn't possibly have known, the gossip only grows. If it were just the "hens" of Margaret and William's church, I wouldn't be concerned, but the talk had reached more violent, aggressive ears and people were starting to look at Alice and I — especially Alice, with something uncomfortably close to murder.

Not that I would ever allow anyone to hurt her. _Ever_. I would literally kill anyone or anything that even tried to touch her. But she is pushing us both to a very dangerous level with this church dance, and I am beginning to fear that my own uncontrollable actions might be what finally shoves the townspeople over the edge.

Three nights before the Harvest Festival, Alice and I are in the parlor, surrounded by the darkened windows of a cold autumn night. I sit in my usual chair with a book in my lap, and convincingly pretend to read as I think. Every time she glances up at me, I keep my eyes on the page, smooth as glass, even casual. But underneath the veneer I am an absolute wreck. This, all of this, is a horrifyingly bad idea. I know it won't end well — despite what Alice says she sees. My limits are being tested further than they should be, and I feel worse and worse after every drill; they don't leaving me feeling hopeful, as they do Alice. They just leave me feeling weak.

I turn a page numbly, and feel my stomach constrict at the thought of failing her, especially after she's worked so hard for this. She sits across from me now at the sewing machine, surrounded by bolts of fabric, mounds of trimming, and several dozen patterns. She is making a costume for about half the residents of Middlebury, throwing her whole heart into each and every one, no matter how absurd. Right now she's working on what looks to be a gigantic carrot suit, stitching decorative rings into the orange fabric, her mouth moving ceaselessly as she goes over all the different angles of the festival and what could possibly happen.

"Carlisle always says that not breathing helps the most, but that isn't going to help much when you have to talk, so we'll have to work in another solution. A pomander, perhaps?" she muses, cutting the thread with a pair of silver scissors. "Something to distort the smell? I've checked ahead about a dozen times already, and it still looks as if there won't be any wind. That will help, right?"

Her skin is even paler than usual, so white that it looks like she's been brushed with chalk, and the rings around her eyes are smudges of coal. Her irises are freakishly black against the pallor, making her look like some worn-out spirit of stress and anxiety. We've hunted every day twice a day for the past three weeks, but she insisted on giving me every single kill, trying to inundate my system with animal blood before the festival. She is taking care of everyone but herself, and her eyes are getting blacker and blacker every day. She needs to stop talking, stop thinking, stop sewing, and hunt. Before she exhausts herself.

"Alice, take a break," I say gently.

"I'm fine."

"Your eyes are blacker than I've ever seen them."

"I'm _fine_. Really." Her darkened eyes lift from her sewing project briefly, and I can feel irritation mixing in with the pervading aura of stress. "The only thing I'm worried about is finishing this list of requests before they start breaking down the door wondering about their costumes."

I say nothing. If the townspeople come to break the door down, it definitely won't be because of a few costumes. The spiteful gossip spreading through Middlebury is much more dangerous than Alice is allowing herself to recognize. But she can't feel the storm of hatred and malice the way that I can, nor the more alarming tinge of murder. She can't see the looks on their faces when her eyes glaze over into another vision, leaving her body behind like an empty, disconcerting shell. Margaret and her husband are constant as always, but aside from them, something very malignant is building to a feverish high. And the situation will not be resolved by sewing perfect costumes, or by showing up at the Festival and dancing like a pair of normal humans.

It will end in either bloodshed or banishment, and both will break her heart.

"Anyway," she continues airily, with a forced little smile, "if you hit the breaking point at about thirty minutes, that should at least give us some time, right? I wonder if we could work in a hunt during the dance... do you think that would help? There won't be any predators, but I've seen deer in the immediate area of the church before."

I am sickened by the mere thought of stalking a deer while the living, breathing, beating hearts of humans are within range. When I hunt animals, I go into what Alice calls "primal mode," depending solely on my senses to guide me; at times there are entire blackouts while I stalk a trail, and I don't come to until I'm already bent over the animal, drinking. Behaving in such a way when humans are near, especially people Alice cares about, would be extremely risky. Especially now, with everyone in town already watching us with suspicious eyes.

"I can't do that, Alice."

Her face falls. "I know." She presses her lips together and looks up at me. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have pushed. I'm just... a little overstressed. Thirty minutes, it is. We can work with that, right? I can play sick after the first few songs and get us out there. And you can calm everyone's nerves so that no one suspects anything."

The anxious, half-desperate expression on her face fills me with compassion. For the third time in the past hour, I reach out and smooth the agitated air around her into relaxed ripples of calm. If she won't listen to me, won't stop, and won't hunt, then the least I can do is meet her halfway. "Teamwork," I say, smiling faintly.

Her posture relaxes a little. "I _can_ win them back, right?" she asks. "This is all just temporary. They'll come around when they see that I'm just the same Alice as always. They'll see, at the dance, and things will all go back to normal."

I know that won't happen, but I can't bring myself to tell her that. Instead I say nothing, and wish to God I weren't such an ineffectual coward.

Alice falls silent too, and when I look at her again I see her blinking in lightheadedness. Her expression falls curiously blank, like a chalkboard being wiped clean in a single swipe. The emotion seeps out of her completely and she sits at the sewing machine like a propped-up doll, motionless for far longer than I'm used to with her visions. Her terrifying absence is something I will never grow used to, and I hold my breath for ages until she finally comes back. Life sparks in her eyes again, and I straighten up with relief. But confusion and apprehension are flooding her aura, and she glances out the darkened window of the parlor.

I am at her side in an instant. "What is it?"

She shakes her head a bit, still dizzy. "Margaret is coming over."

This would seem normal, were it not for the fact that it was two o'clock in the morning. "Now?"

Fluidly, Alice shuts down the sewing machine and flicks off the parlor lamp. The house is startlingly dark now, the only light filtering in from the outside light on the porch. I put my book down and help her as she cleans up the mess of costumes and patterns, carrying the majority of material up the stairs for her while she runs ahead and throws open the door of her room. "It's probably an emergency," she says, mussing up her hair and slipping out of her shoes. "Put on a bathrobe or something, will you? She can't see us in normal clothes at this hour."

"Do I _have_ a bathrobe?"

She cracks a laugh. "You have three. In the attic, across from the winter coats. I'll get the door when she knocks."

I shake my head at her strange habit of shopping for things I don't need, but bound up the stairs to the attic anyway. I tie a terrycloth robe on over my clothes and debate putting on the matching slippers instead of my boots. It would undoubtedly help with the façade, but I decide on impulse to keep them on. I look out the attic window at the darkened front lawn and spy Margaret briskly walking between the piles of autumn leaves, tossing looks over her shoulder like a frightened rabbit. Someone else is walking with her, but not anyone of a threatening nature. A young girl, from the looks of it, and both are radiating fear and urgency.

There is a sinking feeling in my stomach — somewhere, a thread has been stretched too tight for far too long, and everything is finally beginning to unwind and snap. I think of my life here with Alice, this shining, peaceful existence, and realize that it never had a chance. Things this perfect, this beautiful, never last long. Not in my world.

I am still at the attic window when the knock sounds, and I wait in stony silence as Alice answers the door.

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**A/N: **Visitors at 2:00 AM are far and few between and rarely bring anything good... I've already written the next chapter, but I'll let it sit for a couple of days and probably post again Friday.


	14. Witnesses

**Witnesses**

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When I open the door, Margaret's face is exhausted and full of relief. My first thought is how old she looks, how much she's aged from that first day when we sat on a park bench and fed ducks. The wrinkles around her eyes and the edges of her mouth are apparent in this light, and she has never seemed more human to me than she does in this moment, never more fragile or impermanent. If she is surprised that I answered the door so quickly, or that I look wide awake in the middle of the night, she doesn't say anything about it. She only presses a hand to her heart a moment and closes her eyes, communicating a silent thanks.

"Angel, honey, I'm so glad you answered," she says, rushed and out of breath. "I need a place for Lizabeth to stay."

A small figure appears tentatively under the amber glow of the porch light, and for the first time I realize Margaret isn't alone. There is a young human girl with her, not but thirteen, pale, wide-eyed, and afraid.

Margaret had taken in another stray.

But this girl wasn't like the teenage runaways passing through Middlebury that Margaret normally picked up and provided for. I recognized this girl from town. I had never spoken to her, and only seen her from a distance, but I definitely remembered her. She lived somewhere on the more impoverished side of Middlebury, near the Blanchetts on the other side of the grist mill. She is barefoot and shivering now, dressed in a thin cotton nightgown and oversized coat, looking very much as if she had left home in a hurry.

"Of course," I say, curious but worried — something about their demeanor alarmed me. Margaret wasn't in the habit of snatching children out of their beds, much less at two o'clock in the morning, so I can only assume that something serious has happened.

Margaret ushers the girl onto the porch, and casts a furtive look over her shoulder. "I'm sorry to put you out like this, Alice. But the church won't do because her daddy is coming after me like an angry bear and that's the first place he'll look."

Lizabeth turns her face to the light, and I realize with a pang that one of her eyes is blackened. She is cradling her arm at an awkward, broken angle, and her nose is swollen and bruised. Filled with compassion, I step aside and hold the door open for her, automatically holding my breath. The scent of old blood is thick in the frigid air, coming from the dried clumps at her hairline. Even congealed and flaking, the smell makes my starved throat burn with surprising intensity, painful enough for me to clutch a hand to my skin and wince. My first thought is Jasper, knowing he'll never be able to handle it.

The question of whether or not_ I_ can handle it doesn't come until too late.

Lizabeth is moving past me through the doorway when it happens: the girl sniffs once and then abruptly tips her head back with a gasp. She puts a hand up to her bruised nose, and holds it there for a moment before it comes away red.

The smell hits me like a slap in the face — fresh blood, only a foot away, still warm and red on human skin. It glistens in the porch light, ruby-red and sliding, spreading like scarlet ink on parchment through the fine lines of her fingers. It is too much, even for my practiced self-discipline. Stress, starvation, and months of pent up emotion and anxiety bubble to the surface and rage there with roiling, burning concentration. Every bit of compassion and pity disintegrates. My careful pretense of a normal human life falls apart. All I want, all I can think about, all I need, is this girl's blood. My body tenses and crouches like a cat, and venom floods my mouth like acid.

The vision hits me with intense, crippling power, as violent as someone swiping my legs out from underneath me and knocking me flat on my back.

I see myself lunging at the girl, throwing her backwards onto the porch as she cries out in pain. Margaret is screaming, the girl is crying with fear, and my teeth pierce like knives through the skin of her neck. The taste of blood — fresh iron and salt, is like balm on a wound I didn't even know I had. I shudder at the feel of liquid moving down my throat, convulse with each and every swallow. And then suddenly, like lighting, Jasper is there too, only not the Jasper I know. He is territorial now, and protective, and Margaret is witness: a grey-haired woman in the wrong place at the wrong time, with a hand clapped over her mouth in horror, watching as her Angel becomes something far darker and demonic than she ever imagined her to be. And then she sees nothing, because Jasper has his teeth on her throat, and mere seconds later there are two dead bodies, Jasper and I stare at each other with matching demon red eyes.

I come back to the present with a gasp, screaming.

I stumble backwards into the darkened house, knocking over the umbrella stand and toppling a vase. Shielding myself from both Margaret and the girl, I cover my mouth and nose with one hand and clamber against the wall. "Get out!" I screech in a disjointed, horrifying voice I don't recognize.

I can see Margaret's face go sheet-white. "Angel—what?"

I hit the foot of the stairs and collapse, cowering against the bottom step like a child. "Get out get out get out get out..." The smell of blood is everywhere; I am breathing it in like air, swallowing down fire over and over again as my empty throat shreds itself. The vision melts into reality like paint dripping down a canvas, and my stomach drops in dread when I realize what I am about to do — that I can't stop myself, not this time.

"WHERE IS SHE?"

The voice — rough, male, and slurred, shatters the night like a gunshot.

All thoughts of bloodlust and fear vanish. For a moment, every thought all together disappears — some terrible accumulation of horror, panic, and shock that leaves me blank-minded and dumb. Silhouetted in the light from the porch is a stranger. I can't see the man's face at all; to me he is nothing more than a looming shadow reeking of spirits and smoke. But I know this must be Lizabeth's father, because Margaret instantly yanks her backwards into the darkness of the kitchen. The two of them are gone in a flash, and all the man can see is me, crumpled spastically at the bottom of the stairs.

"I should've known it was you," he slurs violently. With an ugly roar, he staggers toward me, batting the lamp off the entry table and smashing it into pieces against the wall. "Tell me where she is you fucking witch. TELL ME WHERE SHE IS! I'll burn you to the stake for this, I swear it— I'll slit your spell-casting little _throat_."

A low, utterly inhuman growl reverberates through the house, so vicious that the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. I barely even have time to register the noise before Jasper is there — some hard, black energy rolling off him like shadows. He jumps down the entire flight of stairs and lands with an almighty crack on the hardwood in front of me. Terror stabs through my chest like an icy knife when he rises up into an alert, aggressive posture. This is not the Jasper I know. He takes one split second to soak me in a backwards fog of lethargy, and then draws his shoulders back in hatred. His fingers flex, and he stares at the man before him with an eerie, calculated calm.

Alcohol and bravado cause the man to swagger at the terrifying sight. "What? You a big man? You gonna fight me?"

Jasper does not reply. Without pausing, without any hesitation at all, he takes two steps forward and grabs the man's head between his hands. The man only has time enough to let out one tiny, muffled grunt before Jasper twists, effortlessly, and a horrible crack echoes through the entryway hall. The man slumps forward and Jasper steps aside, letting the body fall to the hardwood floor with a sickening thud. I stifle a gasp with the back of my hand, and can hear Lizabeth's quick breaths of shock as she begins to hyperventilate. Carelessly, with a stretching roll of his shoulders, Jasper steps over the dead body and stalks to the kitchen doorway, where Margaret and Lizabeth are watching in horrified silence.

"NO!" I scream, and instantly lunge forward to clutch at his hand.

For an instant, with his cool skin on mine, I can feel every single raw emotion crashing through his system: love, fear, protectiveness, horror — feelings strong enough to make me gasp. Beneath the hard black energy of violence is something far more vulnerable than I ever could have imagined in him, something far more than he's ever shown me under normal circumstances. He jerks his hand away, and clenches it into a white-knuckled fist at his side.

"Witnesses," he says flatly, not looking at me.

Something like a sob tangles in my throat. "Jasper, please. It's _Margaret_"

His fingers flex out again, then curl back into fists. I watch in silence as he measures my safety against my happiness, some gruesome creature of Maria's army battling against the Jasper I know and love. A long moment of ugly silence passes, while the two humans blink at him in outright terror. Lizabeth is in full-fledged hyperventilation, her little chest heaving up and down as she tries to get air. A trickle of blood runs down the her nose and onto her trembling lips. Jasper leans forward at the sight, and so do I, unable to resist the scent of fresh blood, even in the midst of such a nightmare.

But Jasper, well-fed and more concerned about witnesses than blood, manages to steel himself first, just barely. I can hear him stop breathing, and he takes an unsteady step back. Silhouetted in the light from the porch, I watch his hands tremble at his sides, and I wonder if he'll be able to take it. Then a strong wave of calm washes through the darkened entryway, thick and heavy like a piece of quilted cloth. Both Margaret and Lizabeth droop their heads forward, their heartbeats slowing to an even pace. Jasper relaxes slightly too, his posture straightening into something less predatory.

"Leave," he says in a cool, collected voice. "Tell no one. Or I will find you, and I will kill you."

Even under the influence of Jasper's fabricated calm, Margaret looks at me with exhausted concern and takes a weak step forward. "Angel—"

But Jasper is there in a flash to cut her off, his shoulders arched back again like he's still itching for a fight. The bleeding Lizabeth is closer now, within arms reach, and Jasper's mouth is tight with pain and restraint. I know he has no air left, and that he'll have to breathe if he wants to speak again; a lungful of fresh blood less than two feet away. I wait silent panic as the seconds go by, seconds in which both Margaret and the girl are in mortal danger. Either Jasper or I will kill Lizabeth, and neither one of us will be able to stop the other.

"Please," I say desperately, my throat on fire, blistering even at the small intake of air that it took to say that one tiny word.

Margaret doesn't say anything, but look on her face speaks volumes. She stares at me with the same tentative expression as everyone else these days — wondering if I'm a witch or worse. But there is no suspicion or malice in her shell-shocked expression, just... hurt. As if she had been betrayed or led astray, victimized in some unspeakable atrocity that she had no control over. The determination I've come to know so well drains out of her eyes, replaced with nothing but a stark, futile defeat. The battle for me, for my soul and for my life, had finally been lost. Like a flickering slideshow, I imagine her alone on an empty bench, feeding breadcrumbs to an empty pond, waiting for birds and ducks that will never come back again.

She puts an arm around Lizabeth and covers the girl's eyes as they walk past the dead body lying facedown on the hardwood floor. The girl is sobbing inconsolably, but Margaret remains steady as a rock, her eyes dry even as her chest heaves with contained emotion. She stops only once to look back at me as she crosses the threshold, her mouth held tight against tears. And then she turns away, and I know, even without the help of visions, that I will never see her again.

Jasper shuts the door with trembling hands and locks it, leaning his forehead against the wood.

For a long time, ages it seems, neither one of us speaks. It is so quiet that I can hear the mechanism of the mantel clock ticking. I wonder vaguely how time could possibly still be passing, constant as ever, when everything else in the world has just been shaken up and shattered into a thousand pieces. I wrap my arms around my legs and stare out at nothing, barely noticing as Jasper takes in a deep breath and moves away from the door. He crouches down beside me in the dark, and sits on the bottom step, his hands clasped loosely between his knees.

"I'm sorry," he finally says, not breathing.

I sniff humorlessly at his guilty tone, and rub my temples with trembling hands. He thought this was all his fault. This whole time, from the moment I opened the door onwards, he probably thought he was the one who had messed up. He thought my appalling vision had been about him — that it was some mistake of his that had me screaming and cowering against the wall. I all but drown in shame. He had warned me; he told me to take a break, told me to hunt, told me I was overstressing myself. He knew the signs, knew what this state could push me to. But his faith in me was still so strong that even when the worse happened, he still couldn't believe that it was my fault.

I can barely make myself say it. "It was me."

I cover my head with my hands, a hollow knot of humiliation and grief battling in my chest. "If you hadn't shown up when you did, I would have killed her, not you. That was my vision. I killed her, and you stepped in to take care of... of—"

"Margaret," he finishes for me, grim and unmoving. "And the man?"

We both glance at the dead body in the entryway, little more than a lump of broken flesh in the darkness. I can still smell the alcohol in his blood, cooled now into a horrendously unappetizing liquid in his deadened veins. For a moment, I think of Lizabeth's bruises and broken bones, and very dark, very fierce part of me feels justified by this unforeseen death. But the memory of Jasper's terrifying, emotionless execution makes me bite my lip. "He wasn't in my vision. I don't think he was actually capable of making decisions in his state. That was... unexpected."

Jasper swallows hard. "I had a reason for what I did. He was violent, and he was planning to hurt you. The things he said weren't just empty threats— I could feel it. Even if I had let him go, he would have come back with help. They would have tried to kill you."

"I know," I say quietly, heartbroken. There was no hiding from it anymore. That a stranger would call me a witch to my face, and threaten me with burning... it made the entire situation of scandal and gossip seem much more real, and much more dangerous. And now, after what we had done, with the murder of a stranger and our bizarre reaction to Lizabeth's blood, there would be more than just talk. I wanted to be able to trust Margaret's silence, but I knew couldn't count on anything, not anymore. I look down at my hands, trying not to fall apart. "What are we going to do?"

Jasper is quiet for a very long time. "We'll leave."

The simple words pierce through my chest. Middlebury, Margaret, the autumn colors, the sugar maples, the house, the memories... I can't bear it. I just can't bear it. It's a pain worse than the fire in my throat, worse than even the swallowing loneliness of the first years of my existence. I tremble like a leaf in the darkness, unable to even look at Jasper. This was the place where we had grown together, the place where my visions finally solidified into something more than a dream. We had been happy here. _He_ had been happy here. I lean my head against the polished banister that he built and feel my lungs constrict. The thought of leaving behind the house that he had worked so hard on fills me with a kind of sorrow that I didn't even know was possible.

We have a life here together, however odd and unconventional it may be. And I never, ever want to give it up.

Jasper can sense everything I'm feeling, and just barely in the dim light, I can see his face crease in a sadness equal, if not more, than mine. "Alice, we don't have a choice," he says gently. "We'll either be run out of town on a witch hunt, or have no choice but to defend ourselves and take out the remaining witnesses."

My chin trembles with emotion. I can't even respond.

With a very tender look on his face, Jasper eases forward in sympathy, and briefly, lightly covers my hand with his. My entire body freezes. The response this simple action triggers in me is wildly out of control and disproportionate, spurred on by the raw adrenaline still crashing through my system. I forget everything that happened, I forget everything we're facing, and I forget everything we're giving up. All I know, all I comprehend, is the fact that for the first time ever, he reached out to touch me. Voluntarily, on his own, his cool, soft skin on mine.

A strange, urgent breath escapes me. I am on top of him before I even realize that I'm moving, my arms around his neck, my lips at his neck and jaw. For one glorious, ephemeral second, I can feel his body tensing beneath mine, and his fingers clutching at my sides. For one amazing second, he breathes into my ear and pulls me against him, with more passion and ferocity than I knew he possessed. For one lone second, he is so utterly _mine_ that I wonder how I ever could have questioned it.

Then without warning, without explanation, he roughly pushes me away. I sit there against the wall of the staircase panting, and he sits there shaking in the dark, both of us startled and reeling. For a moment, all is silent, then:

"We're not doing this," he says harshly, an arrow to my already bleeding heart. He gets up and flicks on the light switch, revealing the stark reality of the night — an open front door, a destroyed entryway, a dead body crumpled on the floor. The gentle, understanding look on his face is gone, hidden behind a callous mask of indifference. He kicks a piece of the broken lamp out of the way, and rights the umbrella stand with steady hands.

"We have until daylight before they'll come for us," he says coldly. "As a precaution, we'll run until we reach the border of Pennsylvania. From there, you can take a train if you deem it necessary, as long as you use a pseudonym," he says, in a clipped, professional voice like he's giving out orders to a waiting army. "I'll take care of the body. You pack. Nothing more than a suitcase. The travel papers are in the study. Burn every document we don't need."

I feel like slapping him.

I stand to my feet, trembling. I don't fail to catch the fact that he left himself out of the train part of this disturbing, militaristic evaluation, like he's going to abandon me at the Pennsylvania station like a piece of unwanted luggage. Burn everything. Pack nothing. Leave a whole life behind without a backwards glance. I clench my fists against the building rage, and feel my jaw lock in restraint. I can think of nothing more than how he pushed me away — how my lips still burn from the touch of his skin, how my sides still ache where he had clutched and held. Fury, humiliation, jealousy, and every other ugly emotion wars within me, and I grip the banister so hard that it cracks.

"Go on, then," I snap, gesturing at the body. "The sooner we finish, the sooner we can leave, right? You'll be free again in no time. I'm sure she's still waiting for you."

His eyebrows draw together sharply. "Just what the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"Figure it out," I say harshly, and I stalk up the stairs, alone.

***

The cold autumn air stings my face and drips into my lungs like ice water, hanging around me in a fog while I feverishly shovel in the dark. There is a morbid satisfaction in this — work, something I can do without risk of failure, an issue solved without complication. A body is buried, a secret is covered, and it's over, it's gone, it's done. I am anesthesia numb and logical, a killer burying a victim, a soldier readying for war. I am iron, I am stone, shovelful after shovelful of dirt, I take care of the first and easiest item on my miserable little list. The man is buried beneath the tallest of the sugar maples, under a windblown pile of blood-red leaves.

I turn, dust the dirt off my hands, and hike the shovel onto one shoulder. I don't allow myself to think of how Alice and I raked up those leaves together, and how she fell back into the pile with her arms and legs spread out like a starfish, laughing. I don't allow myself to think of the day in late summer when we climbed up to the highest branches and watched the orange glow of the sun as it sank below the distant hills. I stride back toward the house, and refuse to remember the evenings spent on the creaking porch swing, reading as she sat at my side. I don't allow myself to remember our first snowman, or how Alice named him and talked to him and actually looked upset when he began to melt. I turn away from it all, and stride across the silent yard, refusing to think of warm days lying on the grass, and the way she looked sketching in the sun. Behind the house, I head for the shed, ignoring the half-finished projects lying outside — an armoire for lace and trimmings, more bookshelves to accommodate a growing collection.

A light in the attic turns on, and suddenly Alice is visible in the round window, sorrow written clearly on her beautiful face as she packs. I stare at her, my chest heaving up and down, and refuse to remember the hundreds of different looks I'd seen in her expression, and the dozens of different laughs and smiles I'd catalogued in my empty, starving heart. I don't allow myself to remember the way her lips felt on my skin, or how her body felt beneath my hands. I don't allow myself to think of how much she means to me, or how much any of this means to me, or how much I long to stay.

Because nothing, _nothing_, is more important than keeping Alice safe.

When the attic light switches off, and the house stands like a dark and silent witness to all I had and lost, something inside of me breaks. I sink back against the shed, sliding down until I hit the cold ground, the shovel clattering uselessly to my side.

Shoulders hunched, chest hitching, I hang my head forward and bury my face in my hands.

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**A/N: **Whew,I felt so bad for Jasper in that last section that I actually wanted to cry a little. We're getting closer to the end now though, and moving into the part that I've been excited about writing since the very beginning. Reverend William and Margaret (Mary) McCance, by the way, were real people in Middlebury during this time. They died in 1977 and 1965, respectively. I pulled Lizabeth, Louisa, Annaline, and all other Middlebury names from historic public records. No one can ever say I'm not thorough. ;)


	15. Fate, and Other Vague Uncertainties

**Fate, and Other Vague Uncertainties**

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When Jasper comes downstairs dressed in the same old jacket and boots he wore when we first met, I want to burst into tears. It feels as if we're going backwards, as if all the months we spent growing and progressing now mean nothing. We're just two strangers in a diner again: one waiting in loving anticipation, the other irritatingly, horrifically oblivious. I lock the door behind us with shaking hands, and when Jasper suggests that we bury the key I shoot him a glare so hard that he has to look away. I am furious with him still, love edging into hatred at every imagined sign of his indifference. The harsh tone of his voice keeps echoing back at me — that flat, awful _"we're not doing this,"_ he muttered when he pushed me away.

I let the anger burn like an autumn fire, heaping on coal after coal of logic and suppositions, so that my heart won't focus on the actual, unspeakable truth, the one that leaves me feeling detached, rejected, and dead:

He doesn't love me. He doesn't want me. He never has.

I give him the silent treatment all the way across Vermont and into New York, ignoring his halfhearted attempts at humor and conversation. As if anything could be funny. As if anything could be worth talking about. Whenever he looks at me I look away, and whenever he asks me a question, I coldly ignore him. The weather is fittingly dark and stormy as we run without resting across grey waters and barren fields, crunching over frosted grass and early snows in the high hills. Eventually Jasper gives up and falls silent too and, in the contrary way of women, I am even angrier with him for this — insulted that he gave up and stopped talking.

We run for two full days and arrive in Harrisburg just after midnight, mud-splashed, drenched, windblown, and bad-tempered, only to discover that the station is closed. The doors are gated over with a padlock and an annoyingly cheery sign indicates it will reopen at 6:00 AM. Dangerously close to the edge of a combustive breakdown, I jerk the gate back and forth a couple of times, rattling the padlock against the metal. Jasper peers in through the darkened windows and gives a little sigh — whether out of irritation or exhaustion, I don't know, but this simple action is enough to trip the bomb. Rage rips through me like a streak of lightning.

"Well, if _that's_ the way you feel about it, you can just go ahead and _go_," I snarl at him. "No use in dragging it out, right? I'm sure you have things to do."

Jasper's jaw tightens, and he shoves his hands in his pockets, clearly tired of my attitude. "I'm not leaving you in a train station alone at night, Alice. I don't care _how_ eager you are to be rid of me. Don't you know where most of our kind pick up victims? I've hunted in this very station with Peter and Charlotte before, and we're not the only ones. This could be someone else's territory we're trespassing on here. They could kill you."

I ignore the look of honest protectiveness on his face, and speak with a tightened throat, my eyes burning. "What do you care?" I snap. "You're just going to walk out on me anyway. What does it matter if I'm dead or not— it's not like you'll even know." I can hear my voice growing wilder and choppier, but I can't seem to stop myself from yelling. "I don't even know why you waited _this_ long. Why go through the _hell_ of feeding on animals and putting up with gossipy humans and spending time with me in my boring little house, if you were just going to abandon me at the Harrisburg train station like a piece of trash?"

Mortified by the quick, heaving motions of my chest and my shaking voice, I turn away. _I bet Maria never yelled at him like this_, a terrible voice within me taunts. _She probably only had to snap her fingers to get him to obey. He never would have walked out on _her_ at a train station in the middle of nowhere. He never would have pushed _her_ away._

Jasper is silent for a very long time. "I thought you _wanted_ me to leave."

This quiet, tentative statement splashes over me a bucket of ice water, and I turn to look at him in surprise. His shoulders are hunched like he's waiting for a punch in the face, and his golden eyes are looking everywhere but into mine. He presses his lips together, and I realize with a rush of emotion that this is hurting him every bit as much as it's hurting me. Standing there in the weak moonlight with his tousled hair hiding his eyes and his hands buried deep in his pockets, he doesn't look like a restless man straining away for freedom; he looks like a little boy who's about to be orphaned.

"I thought _you_ didn't want to _stay_," I whisper, reaching out to touch his arm. He moves back before I can touch him, his hands still in his pockets, his eyes locked on the darkened windows of the train station — on his own reflection.

"Haven't I already caused enough trouble?" he asks, frowning at himself. "It's better, it's _safer_, for you to start a life again somewhere without me. I ruined things in Middlebury for you— don't deny it. Things were fine there until I came along. If I hadn't interfered, you probably could have had another ten years there at least." For a brief moment, he closes his eyes, looking as though he's preparing himself for some terrible confession. "I just... I want you to be happy, Alice. And safe."

It's an outright paradox how Jasper, the most intelligent man I know, can be so remarkably stupid at times. I blink at him in astonishment.

"Happy?" I all but screech. "You know what would make me _happy_? You _not_ abandoning me! How about that, huh? How does that sound? And safe—! How safe do you think it is for me to travel alone? How safe do you think I'll be wandering through strange new territories and meeting other new vampires on my own?"

Jasper's face grows very tight and dangerous. "Well, why don't you go find your mysterious coven, then? Carlisle and Esme and _Edward_," he spits out angrily, glaring at me.

I hate the insulting way he says Edward's name, but secretly thrill at the jealousy I hear in his voice. Out of all the Cullens, Edward is the one Jasper asks about the most; odd, pointed questions that I had never given a second thought about until now. Edward was single — the only one of the Cullens without a mate; Jasper probably thought I saw myself a part of their family in visions because I was going to end up marrying into it. I almost laugh at the idea of being romantic with moody, temperamental Edward, but the pained look beneath Jasper's glare sobers me. I realize that he feels about the Cullens the same way that I do about Maria — each of us feels as though we're just a temporary fix for the other, a momentary respite before real life begins.

"I don't know where they are," I say quietly, my anger gone. "I don't have anyone right now, except for you. Please don't leave me."

Whether Jasper feels the same way or not, my vulnerability seems to knock the wind out of him. His face falls and his shoulders drop, and another sigh escapes his lips. His golden eyes finally move from his reflection to look into my own, and I can see how exhausted he is, how sad. "I've been thinking about that a lot lately," he says in an unsteady voice. "Maybe... maybe that's why I met you in the first place. Maybe that's why you saw me in the diner. It was fate, I guess. Maybe I'm supposed to go with you, until you find them. Until you're safe. Until you're happy."

I stare at him. "I _am_ happy."

He says nothing.

"Well, what about you, then?" I ask sharply. "What makes you happy? What do you get?"

He lets out a short, humorless laugh, as if nothing could matter less. I sigh. I can tell from the miserable look on his face that he's long past the point of reason. He could probably stand outside this empty train station all night without budging an inch, as dirty and disheveled as a vagrant. But his words about fate and happiness are rattling around in my head, and a small, dangerous plan is beginning to form. Whether or not I can actually follow through with it, I don't know. It calls for bravery that I do not possess, and betrayal that I don't quite have the heart for. Standing there with him in the darkness though, it suddenly seems like my only escape.

"Look, I'm sorry, okay?" I say tiredly, mirroring his obvious depression. "Let's just check into a hotel for the night. If you're so dead-set on packing me up and carrying me to the Cullens, fine. I'll check the future again, and we'll see if I can't find them. But please come with me. At least as far as that, okay? And then..." I trail off, and bite my lip at his emotionless expression. "And then, well... I guess we'll get there when we get there."

***

It is 12:34 AM, and the humans in the room next door are making love.

I can sense it before it even starts, and ponder making a feeble excuse to leave. But there's really nowhere else for me to go, and I know I can't trust my newfound resistance yet in a busy city alone at night. Instead, I dig through the stack of travel documents in our suitcase and sit down at the tiny work desk in the corner. Alice is lying stomach-down on one of the beds, sketching on a pad of hotel stationary. I foolishly pray that she won't hear, but she does. Even human ears would pick up such a racket, but with the sensitive ears of our kind, the couple next door may as well have been in the room with us. She raises her pencil briefly, and looks at the wall before turning back to me with an amused expression.

I don't find it even remotely funny. I can feel the emotions radiating through the wall, and that, combined with my already shredded nerves, makes it very uncomfortable to be alone in this room with Alice. I read over the travel papers with unseeing eyes, trying to think of anything but the way she put her lips on my neck the night we left Middlebury, anything but the feel of her slim waist beneath my hands. She laughs once, clearly undisturbed by the situation, and eyes the wall again with innocent curiosity, not a trace of embarrassment on her face. It reminds me of how someone would watch a documentary or flip through a foreign textbook.

"Have you ever...?" she asks, nodding toward the wall.

There is no malice in her question, but I can feel the danger in it none the less. So can she, I imagine, if the hesitation in her aura is any indication. I briefly think of trying to spare her feelings, but can't bring myself to lie. "Yes."

Her mouth drops open in shock for a moment, before snapping shut in vicious anger. "With who?" she demands, then floods with humiliation at the outburst.

"Maria."

Alice takes it like a slap in the face, looking very much as if she is physically ill. Her jaw tightens, and she turns back to her sketching immediately, making harsh scratching noises on the paper. She is silent for far longer than is comfortable, and both of us are forced to listen to the increasing sounds of passion coming from the room next door. She scrubs out a part of her sketch with the eraser, and the emotions writhing beneath her calm façade are actually frightening in their intensity. Equal amounts of pain, hatred, jealousy, anger, and disgust.

"So, you had sex with Maria," she says tightly, a statement, not a question. She doesn't look up at me, and the hotel stationary crumples under the pressure of her pencil. "Great. That's... that's really special. I'm sure it was amazing."

I ignore her cutting, sarcastic tone. "I didn't say it was good, Alice. I just said it happened."

Her mouth is trembling. "Well, then. What's it like, huh? If you're so ex_per_ienced."

The images that come to mind are not ones that I enjoy. I think of Maria's dark hair and blood-red lips, and how she used to stare at me with glinting eyes from across a crowded ballroom. She had approached making love (if it could even be called that) with the same aggressive ambition as everything else. She was violent, passionate, and often uncontrollable. A dark, masculine part of me had been very intrigued by that at first, but as time went on I saw that her idea of excitement was far different from my own. She mixed blood and sex in a macabre way that made me sick, and her violence grew sharper and wilder with every instance. Some of the scars cluttering my neck and chest were from her, but I wasn't about to tell Alice that.

Instead, I sigh, and give her my honest opinion in an abstract way, leaving out the ugly details. "You remember how you explained to me what your visions feel like? How your whole soul seems to drain away into nothingness for awhile?" I watch as she nods slowly, the pencil gripped tightly in her hand, and feel an old, awful sorrow rises up within me. "It's like that. Except it doesn't ever come back, and when it's over, you're left with far less than when you began. It leaves you feeling empty, alone, and aching for something you're not even sure exists."

Alice looks at me with plain, unconcealed pity. "I don't think that's the way it's supposed to be, Jasper."

"Well, that's the way it was."

The pencil twirls idly between her fingertips. The storm of fury had fully dissipated by the end of my vague and depressing description, but some other aching torment is still throbbing there beneath the layers of her aura, something she's purposely hiding from me. I wish she had never asked this awful question, and I wish I had never been honorable enough to tell her the truth. The memory of her body beneath my hands haunts me, and I feel like throwing up when I realize that once we find the Cullens and I leave her, someone _else_ will be touching her like that. The way I once touched Maria. I hunch over the work desk with nausea, and sigh with relief when our neighbors finally shut up.

"Do you see anything about the Cullens?" I ask pointedly.

Alice raises an eyebrow at the abrupt subject change. "Nothing that would give any indication about where they are. Just Edward playing the piano."

It takes every shred of willpower I possess not to growl, and I straighten the stack of travel papers in front of me with concentrated precision. She tells me most of her Cullen coven visions, gaily relating to me the different aspects of each of their personalities and histories. I'm so used to her telling me about her visions that it's actually disturbing to me when she doesn't. Sometimes when she comes back to the present with a tiny, unreadable smile and an unusual peace in her aura, I wonder if the vision had been about someone else. Edward, maybe, or some other stranger. Someone who doesn't know her half as well as I do, but probably deserves her ten times more.

"How many visions have you had, do you think? Since you awoke?"

Alice puts her chin in her hand. "Oh, millions, at least."

"Do you have a favorite?"

Her expression changes in an instant, the thoughtfulness sliding away into something like horror. Embarrassment. Secretiveness. Avoidance. Pain. Her emotional reaction to such simple question actually frightens me a little, wondering what could possibly make her feel that way. She bends her head back down to sketch in earnest, her pencil scratching against the page harder than ever.

"Some visions are nicer than others," she says carefully, not looking at me. "The first thing I saw when I awoke is very special to me."

I'm not sure I want to know, but I ask anyway. "What was it?"

A very selfish part of me dreads that it will be something about her richer, better, safer coven — the vampire family she has always been meant for. It isn't that I don't want her to be happy. I do. But the thought of actually leaving her with them, actually walking away from their peaceful now-complete family, makes me feel sick. I don't want to hear that Alice's favorite vision is something about Edward and his beautiful compositions, or how kind and motherly Esme is, or how much nicer Christmas is with six people instead of two . As happy as I want Alice to be, none of these seemingly perfect strangers is _me_, and that hurts a lot more than I'm willing to admit.

But she only keeps sketching, her eyes glued to the page, and gives a little shrug. "It hasn't happened yet... if it ever will."

"You don't know?"

She smiles wryly. "Fate falls where it wants to, when it wants to. Knowing doesn't often make a difference."

***

Long before the sun fully rises, I leave the hotel room and head for the train station. Jasper elected to stay behind in order to "run some errands," so it was up to me to purchase the tickets. Last night we had vaguely discussed where to go, but the plans hadn't been solidified yet. Jasper mentioned heading west to an area where the populations of both humans and vampires was significantly lower, but also suggested waiting in Atlantic City for Peter and Charlotte, who may or may not know something about the Cullen family. At the end of the conversation, he left the choice up to me and my future sight, assuming I would pick either Oregon or New Jersey.

I had a different plan.

Radiating with unnatural heat, I step up to the ticket counter. I know that what I'm doing is traitorous and wrong, but I can't seem to stop myself from moving. For the first time ever, I'm actually glad Jasper isn't with me; this guilty, clandestine emotion would alert him at once. Talking to the lady behind the counter feels a bit like shoplifting or reading a dirty book, pleasure and guilt all mixed in together and jumbled up until they're too close to discern. I accept the tickets she slides across the counter and hold them in my hand like a burning sin — too late to turn back now.

When I return to the hotel room, I find Jasper standing beside the bed with a pair of shopping bags. The label on the outside indicates that they came from the French boutique across from the hotel; I know this because I had admired their fashionable window display at length last night. There is also a thick new sketchpad and a set of pencils perched on top of the suitcase, much better than hotel stationary I had been sketching on last night. Apparently "running errands" meant shopping for me (and only me, as he is still dressed in the same old jacket and boots). Guilt floods my system before I can stop it, and he looks at me strangely.

"What's wrong?"

I laugh weakly. "You just... you shouldn't have. Thank you, Jazz."

He shrugs with a smirk. "If I hadn't, you probably would have gone in there anyway and spent way more money than I did."

I am vaguely insulted by this, but he holds the shopping two bags out to me like a peace offering, and I have to laugh. I sift though the layers of tissue paper, stifling the guilt and blatantly ignoring the fact that I had just taken such horrible advantage of his trust. I feel like a hardened, selfish sort of woman, the kind of woman who makes decisions without thought of anyone else — the kind of woman who doesn't deserve pretty gifts. Inside one bag is a dress made of violet silk with little pearl buttons running down the back, and the other bag contains a black swing coat and pair of heels. My throat closes up with emotion, but I shutter down hard and try to cover it.

"What, no stockings?" I tease, and he makes a face at me, apparently mortified at the thought of buying me undergarments. I set the tickets down on a chair, slip out of my current traveling boots and jacket, and head for the bathroom to change.

He collects the discarded tissue, folds up the bags, and tosses them in the garbage. "What time is the train?"

"We have an hour."

The dress I ran to Harrisburg in is travel-stained and torn, and I take it off with an enormous amount of relief. In contrast, the dress Jasper bought for me is shimmering and supple, and it fits my petite frame to perfection. The pearl buttons on the back take a while to fasten, but the way the violet color sets off my dark hair and golden eyes makes it all worth the effort. I slide my feet into the new heels and stare into the mirror with satisfaction, arranging my hair into a flattering sideways part. Despite my underlying guilt, it's hard to not to feel beautiful in something that he bought for me; even if he had given me a burlap sack and pair of galoshes, I probably still would have felt like a princess. I stroll out of the bathroom and strike a pose in the doorway, anticipating his approval.

Instead, he is looking at me with an expression of terrifying fury, the train tickets clenched in a white-knuckled fist.

"Houston?" he demands, in a quiet, deadly that voice gives me chills.

My face falls immediately, and I naturally take a step back at the sight of his threatening posture. This is not my Jasper; this is the creature who jumped down a flight of stairs and murdered a man in our entryway. He seems further away from me than ever, as if he had never left Maria, as if he is still in the middle of one of her violent, overreaching wars, still her soldier, still her lover. Jealousy cools my fear, and I watch icily as he paces and back and forth in front of me like an angry lion. His amber eyes lock on mine with frightening intensity, and the tickets tremble in his hand.

"I am _not_ going to Houston," he snarls contemptuously.

"Fine. Then I'll go alone, and you can do whatever you want."

He narrows his eyes. "You know I can't let you do that."

"Then come with me," I say quickly, not bothering to hide my desperation. I wish I could explain to him why this means so much to me, but I don't know how to put it into words. It isn't just the fact that Maria had been to his human home and I hadn't, or even the fact that she had owned him in a way that I'll never be able to. It is me, standing outside his heavily fortified walls, and trying to find some small, surreptitious way in. We can't go on like this, him and I, held at arms length by fear and guardedness. Jasper was my very first vision, and the vision that meant the most, but if neither one of us took that first step forward into fate, nothing would ever happen.

"This is where you grew up, Jasper," I say gently, taking the tickets from his rigid grasp. "It's where you were human and happy. You got to see Middlebury— my home, and my life... however makeshift and odd it may have been. I want to see yours, too. I want to know what your life was like. I want to be where you were the most comfortable and the most at peace."

The anger fades from his face, but the intensity remains blazing in his eyes. "I thought we were trying to find the Cullens."

"We are. We will be. I just... I need this first. Please, Jazz."

He sighs heavily, and crumples to a seat on the bed, where he puts his head in his hands. I know I'm resurrecting some terrible pain that he wants to keep buried. I know this is hurting him. But it feels almost like I'm pulling a thorn out of his palm — the thorn has to come out before the wound can begin to heal. All this time he's been trying to ignore it, trying to put off the moment when his past finally meets up with his present, but healing doesn't work that way. _Life_ doesn't work that way. Hiding, for all its temporary comforts, only deepens the wound.

"If we go," Jasper begins sternly, and breaks off when I straighten and smile. "Listen to me, Alice— _if_ we go to Houston, I need your solemn word that you won't argue with me when I make a decision about your safety. This is my territory, not yours. I know what's safe and what's trouble. If I say it's time to go, it's time to go. If I say you need to run, you run. No questions asked. No matter how you feel about it. Swear it. _Swear it_."

It feels a little like making a deal with the devil, the way his fierce eyes are burning into mine. But I hold up my hand anyway and — at least in that moment — I mean the promise with all my heart.

"I swear."

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**A/N:** Serious Harry Potter fans should know what a promise like _that_ foreshadows. It's a good thing that Jasper and Alice are fighting, by the way, and good that things are a little tense between them. They can't hide from each other forever.

Once again, I already have the next chapter written. I'll have an (evil) update for you Friday.


	16. Houston

**Houston**

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The sweet, unmistakable scent of our kind is all over the train station platform in Houston, so thick in the air that I can barely notice the smell of the humans. These are hunting grounds. Heavily frequented hunting grounds. To my well-trained senses, the signs are obvious: a scratch mark in one of the long marble columns, a bloodstain like a spattering of paint near the edge of the platform, busted tiles near the restroom entrance. All indications of unrestrained kills, inner-coven fighting, and a lack of control. Newborns. My skin crawls with warning and grave familiarity — like the Southern Pacific Railroad hadn't taken me to Houston at all, but to some horrifying point in my past. I walk in front of Alice with a permanent growl rumbling in my throat, my shoulders arched up in alert defensiveness.

From behind, she grabs onto the fabric of my jacket and clings to me like a life preserver. "Are there other vampires here?" she asks, alarmed by my behavior. "Now?"

The anxious tone of her voice softens me a bit, and I sternly try to control myself. Through her fear, I realize that the only way I can manage to protect her now is if I keep it together. I need to be rational. I need to be logical. Panicking will only further exacerbate the problem.

I jerk my head to where the sun is burning low behind a thick layer of clouds. "There are others in the area, but not now. Not in the daytime. They'll be hiding out until the sun sets, in an abandoned house or building somewhere."

On the other side of the train tracks there is a smeared line in the dirt, where it looks as though something heavy has been dragged. A small wooded area comprised of tangled cypresses is visible beyond, and I'm certain this is where the bodies are disposed of. I can just barely detect the scent of corpses on the wind, lingering among the stray branches and freshly turned dirt. I head for this gruesome wood strategically, knowing it's the probably the safest place in Houston right now — despite popular human legends, burial sites are not a frequent haunt of our kind. Once the human is disposed of, we walk away without a backwards glance.

From the gravesite, I lead Alice to the bayou just beyond the cypresses and tread directly into the murky water. "We'll have to walk the rest of the way through this," I say hesitantly, knowing she'll hate it. "They're going to pick up our scent at the train station no matter what, but it would take a pretty extraordinary sense of smell to track us through the bayou."

As I suspected, Alice frowns, but removes her heels and holds up the hem of her dress. Determinedly, she wades into the water. "Whatever you say. But I truly hope finding a hotel is in this strategy of yours, too. Preferably before it rains."

Despite the tension, I have to smirk. "Are you channeling Charlotte there, darlin'? How do you know it's going to rain?"

She nods to the southern skyline, and for the first time I notice deep purple thunderheads rolling in off the Gulf. "If that doesn't look like rain, I don't know what does," she says, pursing her lips. "And you _just_ gave me this beautiful new dress, and now it's going to end up ruined."

I turn away, smiling to myself. She does indeed look beautiful in that dress. Even with the hem all bunched up in her right hand as she gracefully wades through knee-deep water of the bayou. The soft violet silk is the most perfect shade I've ever seen against her skin, and I love the classic trail of pearl buttons visible beneath the edge of her jacket. Every inch of her is delicate and feminine, from the curve of her neck to the tiny frame of her shoulders. Protectiveness burns like fire in my chest, and I take a step closer to her, casually shielding her from the surrounding trees.

"We can find a hotel, but not in Houston," I say firmly. "It isn't safe to stay here. After we visit the house, we can head east through the waterways to Beaumont and find a place to stay."

Beaumont was a smaller city near the Louisiana border, much less-threatening than the overpopulated territory of Houston. I had passed through there once with Peter on a reconnaissance mission for Maria, in order to test out the stability of the Louisiana boundaries, and had nothing more than a vague impression of an ugly port town with very few humans. Alice and I could make it there in under two hours, even tramping through a swampy bayou. It would be safer there. No army commander in their right mind would build up a legion of newborns in an industrial oil district with the Louisiana coven practically breathing down their necks. Not even Maria.

Alice and I make our way through the gloomy water with very little conversation. My focus is largely on the area around us, surveying the trees and shoreline for signs of our kind, and Alice appears to be struggling with a vision. There are no hints of panic or terror coming from her, but when her aura disappears for the fourth time in twenty minutes, I finally stop.

"What's wrong?" I ask. I'm used to every aspect of her visions by now, and I know it's unusual for her to experience so many of them at once.

She frowns, and I can feel a vague sense of frustration in the air. "It's nothing. Just a reoccurring vision that I don't understand. I've been having it since Harrisburg."

I wait, but she doesn't elaborate on what the reoccurring vision is about. Like all the visions she keeps to herself, this disturbs me, and I wonder at first if she has seen something about me that she doesn't like. But after fifteen minutes of self-abuse and disparagement, it finally occurs to me that she was probably trying unsuccessfully to locate the Cullens. This thought secretly (and traitorously) cheers me, and after another few minutes of walking, her vision seems to disappear entirely anyway. By the time we reach Mercer Creek outside of Houston, I am satisfied enough that we are safe, and Alice is steady in the present, her eyes wide with excitement.

I lead us out of the water and onto the brown grassy bank with tingling limbs. When we push through the dry branches of river birch and blackberries, I only have to look around once to know exactly where we are.

My stomach swoops with unexpected happiness. Next to a quiet, eddying pool of the creek is an old stump covered with bluebonnets and evening primrose — my favorite fishing hole. I walk through the trees and, like magic, right as I enter the clearing the sun breaks through the clouds. It shines off my skin and off the water with startling insistency, bright enough that I have to shade my eyes. With the warmth and wind on my face, walking up a grassy knoll to the stump, the whole world suddenly seems familiar and welcome: the smell of waterlily and wildflowers, the shade of yellow-painted light, the rushing sound of the creek behind me. Despite the crushing weight of danger and stress, somehow, some way, this cherished place manages to make me feel like a boy again. Warm memories come floating to the surface of my mind as I stand there staring at that flower-covered stump, things I had forgotten after years of death and war and suffering:

My sister's playful voice, the creases in my father's eyes when he smiled, the smell of my mother's perfume. A lunch of bread, milk, and wild strawberries wrapped in a blue handkerchief. A fox dashing through the thicket on the far side of the creek. The sound of my own heartbeat in the silence of early morning.

Watching me with a smile, Alice folds her legs and sits on the grass with her back against the stump. She twirls a primrose between her fingers and delicately tucks another behind her ear. "It must be so wonderful to remember," she says wistfully. "It must feel like you've finally come home."

Looking at her then, as she sits there in a shaft of sunlight looking like a fairytale vision in her violet dress with flowers in her hands and in her hair, I absolutely ache with longing. Home, whatever it may have been back then, became something entirely different the moment I walked into that Philadelphia diner. Home was no longer a sweet grass fishing hole filled with flowers and memories. It was Alice. Every part of her, from her energetic spirit to her hands, her smile, her laugh, and the sunshine scent of her skin. She filled me somehow, all of me, in a way that no place or memory ever could. _She_ is home, and try as I might to be honorable in the face of all this confusion and pain, the thought of ever leaving her suddenly seems beyond unbearable... beyond anything I'd ever be capable of.

I silently sit beside her in the long tufts of grass, much closer than I usually allow myself to be, and together we listen to the sounds of the forest: the wind rustling through the grass, the bubbling of water, a whippoorwill crooning in the trees. We stay by the creek until the sunlight begins to fade, and then wordlessly crunch through a forest floor of birch leaves toward my old family home.

Before we even reach it, I can tell that things have changed. The trees at the back of the property have been cut down, and the slope of an unfamiliar roof looms over the canopy. My old house is gone, demolished to make way for a bigger, nicer, two-story home with a white picket fence.

I am shocked at first, though I don't know why. The house was old when I lived in it, and it's been eighty-eight years since then. The new property owners wouldn't have wanted a one-story with a leaky roof and a hole in the attic where a family squirrels had crawled and in and nested. The porch had always been too small for sitting, and the windows had been made of cheap yellowed glass. Back then, it was home, and I wouldn't have thought anything of it; my mother always kept the floorboards clean, and my father was a good man with who provided well enough for his family. But thinking back on it now, I can see why it had been torn down, or maybe even fallen on its own. The old barn is gone too, along with the hayloft and the chicken coop and the tire-swing my sister and I had made. Not a single piece of my home remains except for the old weeping willow in the front yard, much thicker and larger now than I had ever seen it been before.

"Is this it?" Alice whispers, tilting her head to the side. We both listen in silence as we observe the house, wary of potential human eyes and ears. But the humans who live here appear to be gone, or so the lack of scent and heartbeats indicates.

"This _used_ to be it. This is the land, for certain, and that house is standing right where mine used to."

I step out of the forest and head for the weeping willow like a beacon, Alice following silently at my side. The sun is just disappearing in the hills behind us, and the air glows with the fleeting yellow light of dusk, bits of cotton and dust visible in the blaze. Far from falling asleep, the world feels as if it is just waking — larks chip back and forth with a symphony of crickets in the tall grass beyond the fence, and the wind picks up to rustle dry leaves against one another on the ground. The willow tree is still half-green in color, but the curled ends of the leaves are slowly beginning to fade into ocher. I hold the branches aside for Alice like a curtain, and the two of us step beneath the weeping leaves, shadowed in flickering strands of yellow light.

She sits gracefully in the grass with her arms wrapped around her legs, her eyes the same radiant color as the sun behind us. Uncharacteristically silent, she merely gazes at me, and I can tell that she's waiting for me to speak.

I bend down and take a seat beside her, leaning back against the willow. "I used to sit under here and read all the time," I say slowly, taking one of the greener leaves in my hand. "Especially when it rained. It was my sanctuary, I guess, like my own private little library. In the spring when the branches were so thick that no one could see me, and the air was cool enough to drink, I'd sit here reading Hawthorne and Melville when I should've been doing my chores."

Something is loosening in my chest as I speak, some hidden guilt that I've never wanted to face or even recognize. "That's where it all started, I suppose. Reading about the adventures of others— these grand lives that seemed so much more exciting than my own. I think by the time I was sixteen I was dead-set on becoming a hero, starting off on my own incredible journey. The Confederate Army felt like destiny."

Sharply now, more vivid than I've ever seen it, the memory comes back to me: the argument with my parents at the dinner table, me storming off to bed — climbing out the window at midnight with a knapsack, an apple, and a pamphlet calling for recruits. Oh God, how my mother must have cried. How they must have worried when I hadn't come home. They must have known where I'd gone; they must have heard the rumors of death and tragedy as family after family lost sons and brothers and fathers and husbands to the petty, selfish violence of war. I wonder now, with a stabbing pain, how long they lived after I had disappeared, how long they waited on me before finally giving up.

"I never got to say goodbye," I say, and hang my head in shame, my stomach cramped with grief. "I just ran off in the middle night without so much as a note, and I never saw any of them again. I was so desperate to leave, so desperate to _do_ something and _be_ something, that I could never see my life here for what it really was. To me, this was home, and it was boring, and_ I_ was boring, and it felt more like a cage than a gift."

Alice gazes at me sadly. "And now?"

I swallow hard, and realize that my hands are shaking. "Now, it seems like this is all I ever wanted in the first place, and I have no idea why I left. I spent decades fighting invisible wars and chasing unreachable dreams. Decades pretending to be anything other than what I was." _Decades making myself into the kind of nightmare who could never, ever deserve to touch you._ I clench my fists. "If I could do it all over... if I could take it all back..."

Alice shakes her head, her eyes shining with compassion. "You can't it back. No one ever can. What's done is done, and there's no going back, not ever. Not in anyone's life. All you can do is make the best out of what's happened to you. What you've been given. I'm not going to pretend that you haven't gone through hell, Jazz. I know you have. But sometimes it's like you think you're still there, like you're still fighting."

My chest is so tight that it feels as though my ribs are cracking. "You don't understand."

"I want to."

Softly, she places her hand on mine, and for once I don't pull away. Her eyes in this light are mesmerizing, and her skin feels like silk as she traces the crescent scar in the curve of my thumb. Gently, she turns my hand palm-up and laces her fingers through mine. My dead, miserable heart turns over in my chest. Some extraordinary summation of joy and terror tangles up within me and stumbles at the intent look in her eyes. All is silent for a moment, the leaves around us fluttering as the light finally fades. I can still see the outline of her face in the darkness, and I'm struck with an aching desire to touch the white skin just below her ear, to draw her closer to me.

Instead, I look down at our clasped hands and wonder what I'm even doing here — why she even bothers. How I could ever, ever be enough.

"Jazz, are you okay?" she asks quietly.

I'm not, but I can't bring myself to say it. I look away, toward a dark sky thrown with brightening stars, and close my eyes when I feel her thumb skim along the back of my hand.

"I _am_ still fighting," I say, for once not caring that I'm being far too open and far too honest with the woman sitting beside me. "I'm trying to pay for what I've done. I'm fighting because after all the sins I've committed, still, even now, I don't deserve to stop. And I can't let go of that, not ever. Because if I do, that means none of it mattered. The lives I've ended, however good or bad... they deserve more than a bonfire or a funereal. They deserve grief, and they deserve justice, and they deserve much more than I'll ever be capable of giving."

I can feel another rush of compassion from her, and can't bring myself to look into her eyes. "And what about me, Jasper?" she whispers. "What do I deserve?"

My heart writhes in my chest. "Everything. You deserve absolutely everything."

From out of nowhere, like a shooting star, Peter's words from ages ago come back to me: _"If you're free, what's stopping you?"_

Sitting there beneath the willow, with Alice's hand in mine, I have no idea. I know in the very depths of my soul, that this —right here— is the life I have so impatiently been waiting for. What I feel, here with her, is everything that I have ever longed for. She is my first taste of contentment, my first taste of joy, and my first taste of something more than what I am. She is like a light that chases away even the darkest of shadows — the heaviest, ugliest memories of death, Maria, and the man I used to be. And suddenly I realize what the problem is between the two of us, what it always _has_ been, ever since I met her and held her hand in that diner for the very first time:

Even though I know I don't deserve her, she makes me feel as though I could.

***

Jasper and I stay beneath the willow tree until just after nightfall when the homeowners finally pull a modest Ford into the driveway.

I think for certain he will drop my hand then, but to my surprise and my delight, he doesn't. He rises with his fingers still twined with mine, and we stride into the darkness together hand-in-hand as the humans clatter around moving suitcases from the car into the house. And when he hit the forest's edge, he _still_ doesn't drop my hand, but only clings to me tighter as we wind through the trees back toward Mercer Creek and the bayou.

It's really all I can do to keep from skipping. Not even the sight of thunderheads rolling in over the moon is enough to shake me. The sky can rain all it wants; by the time the storm breaks we'll be safe and dry in a hotel room, and the rain will be nothing more than a romantic pattering on the window. I wonder, with a wild thrill, if he'll still be holding my hand then — if he'll let me curl up with him on one of the beds. If he'll hold me, if he'll kiss me, if this is finally _it_. At portion of the wall surrounding him has finally fallen tonight, and for once I have absolutely no idea what's coming next.

Jasper looks down at me, confused by my sudden excitement. "Did you want to stay? I thought you wanted to find a hotel."

"A hotel's fine," I say quickly, trying to control myself.

We hold hands all the way to Beaumont, and after almost three hours of constant contact — his cool, smooth skin on mine, I am beside myself with bliss. I don't care about the mud on my feet and shins, or the fact that I stepped on a frog when we crossed through one of the darker swamps. I don't care about my messed up hair, the dirt on my nose, or the stubborn, unexplainable vision that keeps interrupting my joy. The only thing in my universe that even matters is the fact that Jasper's hand is clasped around mine. Not even the beginning drizzle of rain manages to crush my spirits. As we turn onto the main street of Beaumont and head for yellow-lit windows of the only hotel in town, I simply laugh and turn my face up to the sky.

At my side, Jasper freezes.

His face falls blank, and his hand clenches down painfully on my own, almost viciously. The relaxed, affectionate man who sat with me beneath the willow tree vanishes in an instant, replaced by the defensive, suspicious Jasper I thought we'd left behind in Houston. He whirls around at once and stares back out into the thickening rain, his posture overtly aggressive and frightening. There is a long moment in which he does not move, breath, or speak, and the two of us watch wet fog curl up into the night, diffused with sheets of rain.

"Do you hear that?" he asks, his eyes still on the street.

I can't hear anything but the rain gathering in puddles and hitting the metal of cars and buildings around us; a constant drumming of background static. I can't see anything moving in the darkness, and don't understand why he's so obviously alarmed, but I close my eyes and check ahead into the future anyway, trying to see the hotel. A stationary vision echoes back at me: a room with two floral print beds and a key labeled #27.

"I can see us in the hotel room, Jasper," I say calmly, squeezing his hand. "No one's going to jump us in the street, okay? Relax."

He doesn't relax at all — only mutters something spiteful about the 'damn rain,' and all but shoves me through the revolving door of the hotel. Inside, it is warm and dry, and we stride across the marble floor together with our hands still linked, swiping rain off our faces. Light, melodic classical music is playing in the lobby, contrasting wildly with Jasper's caginess. His eyes dart toward every corner of the empty room and swipe over the ceiling twice. His grip is painful again, and he shoots such a dark look back at the rainy entrance behind us that I can feel my stomach drop.

"Jasper, please relax. You're scaring me."

"You can't feel what I feel," he says curtly.

I don't understand the full connotations of that statement, but before I can ask, the effusive concierge behind the front desk abandons his newspaper with a gasp and comes running toward us. With a great deal of slack-jawed flattery, he mops up the floor beneath us with white monogrammed towels, and chatters on annoyingly about us "catching our deaths" out there. When gallantly he tries to wrap another towel around my shoulders, Jasper finally drops my hand and steps in front of me with a snarl that startles me and absolutely terrifies the concierge.

"Key," Jasper growls with his hand outstretched, and I watch the concierge's eyes glaze over with sudden compliance.

#27 is handed over to us in an instant, and Jasper swivels around without a second glance and leads me up the stairs. On the second floor, he pauses in the door to the hallway and stands there motionless for a full five minutes before cautiously proceeding forward. I want to ask what's going on, but I can tell he needs me to be quiet right now. My hand feels cold and bereft without his touch, and I can feel ice winding upwards from my fingertips, as if my whole body will freeze without him.

He unlocks the door of our room with a steady hand, revealing two floral print beds and a tiny window with no curtains. He doesn't hold the door open for me as he normally would, but barges in first instead, checking the closet, the bathroom, the beds, and behind the curtains. He motions me in, and closes the door behind me with a lock, continuing to search the room and sniff the air like a crazy person. When bends down to peer beneath the desk in the corner, I finally giggle.

"Looking for mini vampires?" I ask. "Pocket-sized, perhaps?"

He straightens up, looking a bit angry at first, then shakes his head in sheepishness. His eyes crinkle a bit at the edges. "I already know a pocket-sized vampire," he says with a heart-melting smile, and I laugh. It feels like flirting, or as close to flirting as Jasper has ever come anyway. I reach my hand out for him again, and he moves forward to take it.

The second his fingers touch mine, I sway on the spot with lightheadedness. The laughter dies in my throat. I can feel myself emptying out of the present uncontrollably, everything within me rushing out in one trembling wave. The floor tilts up toward my face, and I can just barely see Jasper's arms move forward as I fall.

The vision is the same one I've been having since Harrisburg, only much more vivid and urgent. There isn't anything especially extraordinary about it — just some random house. But every time I see it I can feel an awful residual of dread sliding off my heart; and this time it makes me feel intensely uncomfortable and afraid. I come back to the present to find myself on one of the hotel beds, with Jasper kneeling on the floor beside me. His arms are folded on bed next to my pillow, and his expression is concerned. He must have caught me and carried me there.

"What is it?" he asks gently.

I shake my head to rid myself of the dizziness, and feel irrationally annoyed at my inability to control my visions. "It's nothing. Just that same weird vision."

"About the Cullens?"

"No, no. It's definitely not the Cullens."

When I saw the Carlisle, Esme, and the rest of the family, the colors were always bright and remarkably solid. There was an underlying current of happiness in every picture, even during their darkest times, as if my entire image of them had been painted over with joy. Because my future in their family would be a mostly pleasant one, the visions always left me feeling content and peaceful. But this one, which kept repeating at odd, unexpected intervals, just made me feel anxious. None of the Cullens were in it either, no people at all, actually — not as far as I could tell.

"What is it then? What do you see?" Jasper asks, his eyes blazing with intensity.

The vision swims before me again, blurry like a ringed-reflection in the surface of a black pond. "It's nighttime. There's a full moon. And there's a house—no, not a house. A mansion."

There are stones that look black in the moonlight, delicately carved into ovals, melting into flat walls made of a smooth material I don't recognize. The walls are shadowed by tangled vines of ivy and climbing roses, the blooms closed against the night. The house is rectangular, but magnificent, with a long rows of arched columns shadowing a walkway and forming a balcony on the second floor. Huge, ornate glass windows spill yellow light onto an empty courtyard.

"There's a marble staircase. An arched ceiling with an atrium. And music, and dancing, and laughter... but it doesn't feel right. Something's not right," I pause, finding it hard to speak. "There's a cobblestone courtyard outside. Moonlight. A wrought-iron gate..."

The view shifts in the vision, as if I'm moving away from the mansion and the music, over the moonlit cobblestones, through the rusted wrought-iron gate, and down a pitch-black forest path. A fiery glow is visible in the distance, but it isn't until the forest fades into a clearing that I can see it:

"A red-orange bonfire, surrounded by a ring of live oaks."


	17. Just Like Old Times

**Just Like Old Times**

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* * *

I am on my feet before Alice even finishes speaking, my skin chilled with horror. I can picture every detail of her vision with exact, sickening perfection.

The Monterrey mansion. The _fucking_ Monterrey _mansion_. Terror rolls up and down my spine, a strange combination of needles and ice. Panic is wild and fluttering in my stomach. I know with utter certainty that Maria will kill Alice — torture her. I can still hear her low, Spanish-accented voice as she flicked her tongue along my ear and whispered, _"No one else will ever touch you. No one else will have you." _I can still feel the way her hands grabbed at my hair, the way she jerked my head back to stare possessively into my eyes. Her jealousy, like her hard-edged ambition, had always been completely, utterly out of control. No threat was idle, no matter how frivolously spoken. She would kill Alice, and she would make me watch.

"Get up."

Alice looks at me like I'm crazy. "What?"

"Get _up_," I snarl, hauling her off the bed with one hand, ignoring her surprised cry. I snatch her purse and jacket off the floor and shove them both into her arms. "We're leaving."

Alice looks toward the door. "But—"

"NOW!" I roar, and she draws her head back to stare at me like I'm a stranger.

Beyond myself, growling like a monster, I grab her by the shoulders and physically drag her toward the door. Frightened and angry, she whips a hand out and clings to the bedpost like an anchor, trying to struggle out of my grip. I only snarl and wrench her back, and the solid oak bedpost busts off and clatters to the floor. Alice gasps and turns in my arms to grapple with me, beating her fists against my chest. I pin her hands to her sides and lock my arms around her in a defensive move I remembered from my days of war — one flex of my muscles and I could shatter her entire upper body.

"Stop it!" she cries out, struggling. "You're scaring me! You're hurting me!" she finally screeches.

I drop her my arms instantly, and she backs away from me and hits the wall, panting. She swipes at her eyes with a shaking hand, looking as though she's going to be sick. "You have to tell me what's going on first! You have to, Jasper!" she repeats when I only snarl at her. "This is not the way my visions work! If we go out that door and we're not supposed to­—"

Furious, I take a predatory step toward her, pointing. "You think a door is going to stop her?! You think _anything_ can?"

She pauses, her breath gone. "Who?" she whispers.

"Who do you think?"

Complete and utter dread fills the room, as instantly as if someone had doused us both with a bucket of ice water. Alice looks at me with a blank, stunned expression, and sinks back down to the bed as if her knees can no longer hold her. "You know the mansion I saw?"

My mouth is almost unable to work. "It's the mansion in Monterrey. Her home." _I was there the last time I saw her_, I think, but don't say. _Dancing at a fête after killing over a dozen newborn vampires and setting the bodies on fire. _"What I felt outside the hotel was murder, Alice. Murder and malice and revenge. She knows we're here, or someone else does, and they won't stop at anything until they find us. If they saw us come in here... if they pick up our scent..."

"Let me think," she says quietly, and presses her eyes shut, holding a hand to her forehead. I feel her emotion drain away again while she envisions the future, waiting with numb anticipation as her body trembles and convulses at whatever she sees. The rhythmic pounding of rain outside the window feels like a heartbeat, like a steady clock counting the seconds that she's gone, the seconds she's away in a place where I can't possibly protect her. She comes to again with fresh terror in her eyes, and raises a shaking white hand to her lips. "She… I… you're not there. You're not there. I'm with her… in the mansion, and you're not there."

Her gaze cuts sharply to the door. In the distance, I hear the elevator ping.

"That's not going to happen," I say flatly, ignoring the sick stab of dread and horror piercing through my chest. Someone's here, I can feel it. They're here, and they're coming for us now. And they will kill me and take Alice, and make her pay for every horrifying mistake I've ever made. I clench my teeth together so tightly that a muscle in my cheek spasms. "We're getting out of here, right now. You hear me?" I shout the last part without care of manners or chivalry, and grab her arm like a vise. " I don't care if I have to throw you over my shoulder and drag you across the state line. She is never going to touch you. _Never_."

"And what about you?" Alice shoots back, her eyes blazing hot with fury.

I open the window with a growl. "Who cares?" The rain is pounding on the metal railing of the fire escape like gunfire, and a flash of lighting lights up the alley in white.

"I care."

"Well, you shouldn't," I snap harshly.

I help her out the window and onto the fire escape, feeling nauseated when I wonder if this might be the last time I ever touch her. The rain soaks us both as instantly as if we'd plunged underwater, matting Alice's hair down to her forehead wetting both her cheeks; the violet silk dress twists against her thighs and sticks to her skin, blue-black in a stab of lightning. I swing off the railing and motion for her to do the same, both us slipping a little on the greasy metal as we jump. We hit the pavement below with a splash, and I immediately begin scanning the surrounding area for the telltale signs.

Alice stands apart from me, facing the wall with her arms wrapped around herself, emanating rage. She looks so small to me then, so breakable; the graceful curve of her neck has never seemed so fragile before, and her waist has never looked so thin. I slick the hair out of my eyes, clenching my fingers into my scalp — all I ever wanted was protect her, to keep her safe and happy. That had been the plan, hadn't it? Hadn't it? And now, because of me, petite, lovely little Alice would be dragged before Maria, tortured, and lit on fire to die. Something like a half-sob-half-scream rises up within me, and I slam a fist against the wet brick wall of the alley.

"You never should have cared at _all_, goddamn it," I seethe out loud, furious with myself. "That's why you're in this mess right now, Alice— you understand that right? You're here because of _me_. You're in danger right now because of _me_. This is _my_ mess, _my_ past, _my_ hell."

"And these are _my_ choices," she yells, whirling around to face me, a lock of wet black hair plastered to her cheek. "So stop acting like you hauled me down here in a gunny sack. I asked you to come here. You warned me what would happen. You told me your past was still alive and waiting. I was the one who bought the tickets. I was the one who wanted to come here. I all but forced you. And now— now if something happens to you—"

Her voice cracks and trails off. Her chest heaves up and down with anxiety, and she presses the back of her hand against her mouth.

The vulnerability in her aura softens me, and I long to fold her into my arms, wet as we both are, and press my lips to her forehead — to tell her that's its going to be alright, even if it's a lie and we both know it. But right as I take a step toward her, the light flicks on above us in our window. Alice gasps and brings a hand up to clutch at her own throat, and both of us duck down into the shadows of the alley. They know we're not in the room. We have minutes, maybe seconds, until they exit the hotel again, doubtless stepping over the dead body of the concierge and anyone else who got in the way.

"We have to run," I say quietly. "Now. You remember what you promised me? You gave your solemn word."

She bites her lip, but nods.

"Let's go then," I say, suddenly a brisk military leader again. "We're going to move fast and quiet. Follow me behind me. Don't speak unless it's absolutely necessary."

Almost desperately, Alice takes my hand in hers, and I grind my teeth against the power of emotion coming through her fingertips. Even as horrified as I am, I try to calm her down, waiting until she begins breathing in and out normally again we begin moving. Our skin is wet and marble-slick, and her small hand slides within my own as we turn down the alley and make our way out into the darkened street. The thunderheads have veiled the moon and the stars, leaving behind a sky of pitch-black darkness and a misty fog that curls up in tendrils against the rain. The only light comes from the yellow windows in the buildings above us and the occasional flicker of a television.

Halfway down the street, a figure appears through the fog of the sewers.

I freeze instantly, and step in front of Alice in an automatic reaction, my fingers curving into claws. The figure is male, slim but well-built, with an aura that practically screams excitement, murder, and bloodlust. I would recognize the predatory gait and bearing anywhere — this is one of Maria's soldiers. A man who had been trained from "birth" to fight. But he hasn't smelled us or spotted us yet; he is too distracted by smells of the humans in the apartment building above. Alice and I just look like any other normal hand-clasped couple walking down the street at night, and the wind is moving in the wrong direction for him to catch our scent.

I turn us around and start heading back toward the hotel, but stop abruptly. Another vampire is coming from the opposite end of the street — closing in on the hotel.

Lightning strikes sideways and lights up the blackened clouds like a pulsing vein, followed by a rumble of thunder. Next to me, Alice's breath is coming in and out in short panicked gasps, and her little hand is shaking. Her aura drains again and again, and I know without words that she is checking and re-checking the future, and that nothing has changed.

Immediately, I dart back into the alley we came from, practically carrying Alice until she comes back from her vision. When her wet eyelashes blink up at me in fear, I make a soundless slashing motion with my hand: _no more visions_. I need her conscious and ready to run. She nods, and the two of us splash through the alley, where a group of black-eyed cats watch us from the shadows. At the very back there is a short brick wall behind a row of trash cans and soggy cardboard boxes. I help Alice up and then scale the wall myself, dropping back down on the other side into another alley that empties out into what looks like a fenced industrial area.

Smoking factories and blackened warehouses are surrounded by a length of chain-link fence topped with barbed wire. Outside lights of switches, lamps, and doorways blink in the rainy haze like eyes. Here, the combination of rubber, ash, coal, and rain distorts the sharp, sweet smell of our kind, and I find myself running blind. My eyesight is next to nothing the thick swirl of fog and smoke, my sense of smell is shot, and I can't hear anything over the roar of machinery and constant pounding rain. It is hell on earth in this place: I am senseless right when I need my senses the most. At the padlocked gate, Alice turns to me in question, and I look down for a moment, calculating.

If the vampires from the from the street catch our scent, they will undoubtedly follow us into the industrial yard, where they will be as blind, deaf, and senseless as we are now. If we manage to hide and I keep an eye on the gate, we can double back on the same trail we came in on while they search for us among the factories. And even if they do figure it out and track us back through the alley, we'll be long gone by then under the cover of the bayou. We could leave Beaumont from the opposite direction, making a run for the Louisiana border.

I snap the steel padlock in half like a toothpick, and drop it into the mud beneath us. Let them find it and be drawn further in — let them get lost in the scent of oil and rain and mud, unable to see anything but the cloud of fog in front of them. Ahead of us, the warehouse on the left has a row of high windows facing the chain-link gate, and the building is unlit due to a smashed light above the sliding metal door. Alice and I streak through the industrial yard in another flash of lightning, splashing through the ankle-deep puddles soundlessly amidst a boom of thunder.

I reach the warehouse and yank the handle up, sliding the door open as quietly as I can. I usher Alice in and shoot a look over my shoulder — the chain-link gate still stands open and unmoved, and nothing is visible through the sideways sheets of rain. I slide the door shut again and lock the handle firmly down, never letting go of Alice's hand. Inside, the rain is a dull clatter on the arched metal roof of the warehouse, running down the dirty windows in rivulets. Next to the door is a high stack of crates, built up toward the windows like a staircase. With Alice at my side, I scale the crates to the very top, and we both turn to look out the foggy windows.

We only are there for only ten seconds before a low voice speaks up from the back of the warehouse:

"Whitlock, Jasper," he says, and my body turns to ice.

***

I can feel Jasper's fear, shock, and recognition pulsing through him — shooting through his palm like a livewire as he holds my hand.

From out of the darkness, a male figure steps into the light. He is tall, almost as tall as Jasper, with cold red eyes that gleam like embers. "It's just like old times, isn't it?" he says, with a smile that chills me to the bone. He walks forward casually, strolling over the barely lit squares of light reflecting in from the windows, his face falling in and out of shadow. He moves like an animal, like a hunting cat, his shoulders arched behind him with his head slightly bent. "_She_ isn't here, so you needn't ask. But she's stoking the fire in Monterrey as we speak. She was very, _very_ disappointed that you didn't come calling on this little pleasure jaunt of yours. I'm not."

"Oh?" Jasper asks casually, actually studying his nails in disinterest.

I stare at him in alarm. His abrupt nonchalance frightens me more than anything ever could. It is so horrifyingly _unlike_ him to act this way, so utterly un-Jasper. He turns up his chin haughtily, looking so bored and so arrogant that my throat closes up in terror, wondering about the reason behind his obviously counterfeit behavior. The stranger in the warehouse with us is not Maria as I had feared, but instead of feeling relief at her absence, somehow this anomaly disturbs me even more — an unknown element has suddenly entered into the equation. I had been preparing myself for a dark mane of Spanish curls and a feminine laugh, not this strange, animal-like man.

Closer now, I can see the acute perfection of his face, the gleam of excitement hidden beneath a layer of outward frost. He is young, with tousled black-brown hair and narrow features. Long, sweeping eyelashes surround almond-shaped eyes that may have at one time been blue. They are blood-red now though, and radiantly visible even in the darkness. "All I've ever wanted is to watch you burn," he hisses coldly. "I've waited for this moment for more than half a century. Dreamed about it."

"Funny," Jasper says, in a voice like ice. "I don't even remember your name."

The stranger sniffs. "You _wouldn't_, would you? Tell me, Major Whitlock, do you remember _anything_ about _any _of the newborns you killed in Monterrey?"

"Why do you care? You obviously survived the cut." Jasper's left hand is now gripping mine so painfully that I have to bite my lip. His iron grasp is startlingly paradoxical in light of his relaxed, almost cavalier posture. He recognizes this man, I can see that much, and despite the veil of indifference he is very, very nervous. He dusts a bit of mud off the pocket of his jacket and flicks it off his fingertips, half-ignoring the prowling stranger below us, who narrows his glinting red eyes like two slashes of blood against a backdrop of velvet.

"My _brother_, Major Whitlock," the stranger hisses through clenched teeth. "Soren Lykes. You remember the name, don't you? You should. I'm Kade Lykes, and you murdered my brother, Major Whitlock. You murdered him and left me to live, the night you ran away like a coward."

None of this means anything to me, but Jasper seems to understand. "So that's how you tracked us."

Kade takes another step forward, his chin jutting out in defiance. "You cut me from the death list because of my gift — an extraordinary sense of smell. Fitting, isn't it, that I now use that sense of smell to hunt you down like a dog? I never forget a scent. Never. I knew you the moment you stepped off the platform in Houston, and followed you and the girl here through the bayou." Slowly, his cold red eyes alight on mine, and my stomach clenches in response. "Is she your lover now, Whitlock? Your pretty little plaything?"

Jasper's casual posture holds, but when he speaks his voice is so hard that the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. "She is none of your fucking business."

Kade flashes a phantom smile. "You brought here. That _makes_ her my business." Jasper stiffens at these words, but Kade doesn't notice the reaction. His head is turned slightly toward the door, where I can hear an abundance of splashing and voices outside the thick steel. My lips press together in worry. The others from the street have found us, and Jasper and I are now outnumbered. "In here, boys!" Kade shouts over the rain with a grin. "The party's just getting started."

The door slides open with an influx of sound, rain slapping against the floor of the warehouse as three more vampires enter — all male, all moving with the same feral, catlike gait as Kade. Something about their faces is strangely less-graceful though, more wild. Unlike Kade's carefully cold features, the three new vampires all share a matching expression that could only be described as _hunger_. Their eyes are the most vivid, glowing red I have ever seen — a color made of fire rather than blood, almost painfully luminescent. Two of them look enough alike to be brothers, both massively muscled with an abundance of auburn curls; the other is a feathery blonde and so handsome that he looks like a portrait of a renaissance angel.

Jasper eyes them all with sniff of disdain. "Four to one. How honorable."

I turn to him sharply. "Two. Four to _two_."

"Don't be stupid," he says coldly, not looking at me, and I feel my heart drop nearly through the floor at his hard, unflinching expression. He shakes off my hand like the mud from his jacket, ignoring my wounded look and trembling mouth. _Don't be stupid, we're not doing this — _his harshest words echo back at me like a taunt as he turns his head. "You're going to run, just like you swore you would. And now. Run until you reach New Orleans, stay there."

"No," I say numbly, my hand stinging from the absence of his touch. "No," I gasp out again, blinking rapidly. "You can't make me do this— I won't. I won't leave you."

The two red-haired brothers laugh out loud at this plea, but the angelic blonde vampire smiles, a beautiful flashing of teeth that belies the violence in his eyes. He lithely springs up the crates to perch just beside me, in a movement so fast that I couldn't even follow him with my eyes. The scent of him this close is like spun-sugar, like dripping caramel, a smell so sickly sweet that it's actually repulsive. "Stay then, darling. Stay," he purrs, in a low, smooth voice that must have lured in hundreds upon hundreds of female victims. His eyes are almost hypnotic in their strange, gruesome beauty. "We'll dance, you and I, before it's over, and you'll forget he ever existed."

He reaches out a thin white hand toward me, and I recoil back against Jasper with a cry.

I feel the solid mass of his arms and chest behind me for only one instant, and then there is nothing. I almost pinwheel backwards off the crates, and the entire stack shudders with momentum and threatens to topple. Jasper moves in front of me in blur of color. With a brutality that shocks me, he grabs the outstretched white arm and wrenches it downwards over his knee. It breaks off with sound like busted marble, and the angel-faced vampire howls.

Jasper tosses the chunk of flesh aside like garbage. Without even the slightest pause, he lunges forward, feints to the side, and comes up behind the gibbering blonde vampire like a ghost. His strong arms clamp around the other vampire's body as if to embrace him — but instead he yanks him back toward his chest with a ferocious jerk, so hard that every single piece of crystal and flesh cracks and audibly shatters. I gasp, the angelic vampire screams, and Jasper cuts off all sound with a vicious bite to the side of his neck, gripping the wound with his fingers and prying off the head with a sickening rip.

The beautiful blonde head, now detached jaggedly from the alabaster neck, is dropped just as easily as the arm, and for one horrifying moment the headless body stands there swaying. Then it crumples over and falls down the staircase of crates with an ugly, gasp-inducing thud. I bring both hands up to my mouth in shock, sinking to my knees. I had never, ever seen anything so violent— not even in visions. Reality hits me like a slap in the face, and all of Jasper's words about the danger of his "world" suddenly fly back at me with a fresh, terrifying new validity. This is nothing I have ever experienced. This is nothing I ever could have imagined.

Jasper, too, stares at the fallen body, with a blank wordless expression that breaks my heart. For some reason the memory of dancing with him in the attic comes back to me: the gentle pressure of his hand on my waist as he taught me how to waltz, the sound of his laugh in my hair. The distance between that Jasper and this one — the distance between his life with me and this grisly, murderous past, must have felt as far apart as a canyon to him; a gaping hole that he'd never be able to cross, a jump he could never hope to make. It was never that he didn't _want_ to be with me. He just didn't know _how_. My throat closes up with emotion. Funny how I finally understand him now, and only now — when it's far too late to make a difference.

The vampires below us simply kick the twitching body aside. One of the redheads jabs a thumb at Jasper with a laugh. "He's the jealous type, he is."

Jasper ignores them. He turns to me as if he's just remembered I'm there, and steps across the crates to gather me up to a standing position. With one hand still around my waist, he slams a sideways fist into the window next to us, shattering the wet glass in an instant. The sound of rain thunders into the warehouse, and a cloud of condensation rushes in, ice cold against my cheeks. The message is painfully, abundantly clear: leave. Run. I close my eyes. Safety, my own safety, is one drop out the window, one run into the rainy night. I know I'll live, and he will not. I know he'll die to protect me. I know that if I leave now I'll never see his face again.

"Go," he whispers quietly. "Please. Please go."

I make a movement as if to shake my head, but he grabs me roughly by the chin. Passion unrestrained for once, he looks at me an open, tormented expression, some absolutely unbearable emotion in his eyes. His other hand presses against my ribcage, my waist, my hip, his fingers digging hard into my skin as he crushes me to his body. I respond the same way I did the last night in Middlebury, throwing myself against his chest, my hands curving up into his hair. His lips are inches away from mine, so close that it feels as if we are breathing into each other, so close that I can taste him through the haze of rain and fog. Gently, so gently that I could have imagined it, he brushes his lips against mine.

"I have nothing to live for unless you're safe," he says brokenly. "Run."

* * *

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**A/N:** If you're confused as to what's happening here and who Kade Lykes is, read the first few paragraphs of the Prologue again. Yeah... I'm tricky like that. ;)


	18. But Now I See

**But Now I See**

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**.**

* * *

I watch, unblinking, as Alice disappears into the rain.

Her tiny figure grows smaller and smaller as she splashes through the puddles of the industrial yard and makes her way to the chain-link gate, never turning to look back at me, not once. I watch until I can't see her anymore, until the rain veils her as swiftly and thoroughly as a curtain closing over an ending performance, a velvet sweeping of finality. I breathe in a lungful of ice-cold fog, and my chest tightens until I think my ribs might crack, until I feel as though my entire body is folding inwards around this terrible, crushing pain.

_Alice_.

I heard a story once about a blind man who was given back his sight. He was so used to living in utter darkness that the sudden array of colors and brightness actually frightened him. Even the sun, as beautiful and golden as it is, was a searing, foreign pain against his newly sensitive vision. The new sensations were so intense that he took to wearing a blindfold, and stumbled around unseeing long after he'd been healed. As I stand at the broken window watching her go, breathing in mouthful after mouthful of thick rainy air, I begin to feel like that blind man. I feel like a man who hid in darkness even as the sun beamed all around him, warm and waiting on his skin.

If I could start over... If I could begin again from day one... If I hadn't lived a life of blood and death... If I had never seen Maria's face... If I had never joined the Confederate army… If I had been a better man... If I had been someone Alice could have loved. The possibilities knot together in my throat, and I swallow hard, blinking fast against the rain, wishing for a second chance I don't deserve and a life that could never have been mine.

_Why me?_ I want to shout after her into the darkness. _Why did you choose me?_

On the warehouse floor below, Kade Lykes is simmering with arrogance. He knows, as I know, that I will not live out the night. I can't fight both him _and_ the two newborns — separately yes, but together the mix of brute strength and military experience will trump even my own practiced abilities; if I'm going to fight at all, I'll have to fight dirty, without compassion or conscience. But this isn't about me. It never was. And as clever as he may be, that's not something Kade's capable of understanding. I'm not fighting for my own worthless life tonight. I'm fighting for Alice.

One of the red-headed vampires on the ground laughs. "She won' survive, you know. We're just goin' to go after her when you die."

I smile faintly. I told Alice to run to New Orleans for a reason. I clearly remembered Peter's last report of Maria's military actions — a battle in Texarkana with the Louisiana coven. There would be bad blood on both sides for many years after an event like that, no matter which side had come out victorious. And due to an invasion-detection talent within the coven, the four French vampires who owned New Orleans would be immediately aware of any vampire crossing the border of their territory. Alice, a simple nomad with no militaristic agenda, would be left alone. But any member of Maria's army would be slaughtered the instant they stepped into Louisiana.

"She'll be long gone by then," I say with a shrug, and casually gesture toward Kade. "Your '_master'_ there should know why I told her to go to New Orleans."

Both red-headed brothers stiffen at the word 'master' and share a dark, wordless look. "Master? Is that wha' he said, then?" one of them asks.

I slowly descend the staircase of crates to the warehouse floor, tilting my head slightly as I come closer. Their demon-red eyes are fastened on mine in something like bloodthirsty awe. As subtly as possible, I begin to thread discord through the air, taking the already-existing pieces of suspicion, offense, and envy, and magnifying them. "Is that not right? He said—"

"Shut up!" Kade snarls, catching on the instant I start to speak. He strides out in front of the two disgruntled brothers and blocks me from their view as if my talent depends on eye-contact alone. He snaps his fingers at them like they've been hypnotized. "Wake up! I _told_ you what he can do. He's using his power right now, toying with you, twisting things around to suit his own needs. Ignore what you're feeling. It isn't real. What's _real_ is the reward Maria will give us for bringing him back in _pieces_. Now, snap out of it and grab his arms!"

I raise an eyebrow. "Are you really going to let him talk to you like that?"

"Shut _up_!" Kade's aura is now tinged with fear — he can sense the danger in what I'm trying to do. He knows these two brothers could turn on him easily, with very little help from me. Maria's soldiers were trained to be fiercely competitive and ruthless. In their ambition to please her and please their own arrogance, they would gladly stomp over each other's dead bodies. Kade leans forward intently, as if to tell them a secret. "Think of how pleased she'll be, boys. Think of how she'll love you. She'll give you whatever you want. A fresh fifteen year-old girl? Two? Three? You'll be swimming in blood. More than you can even handle."

The intrinsic newborn tendencies are still far stronger than anything I'm able to fabricate. The talk of blood sends both red-headed vampires into a frenzy of hunger. Their scarlet eyes glimmer visibly with urgency, and their posture changes from withdrawn to engaged as they arch their shoulders up and crouch back down to a fighting position.

Kade's mouth curves up in triumph. "Grab his arms."

The brothers are on either side of me in an instant, each clamping onto one of my arms with a massive hand. Both of them are huge, with rippling muscles barely contained by their ragged clothing. I survey them casually and estimate that Maria likely uses them as a personal guard, taking advantage of the phenomenal strength that comes from a newborn vampire with a naturally strong physique. It is also highly likely that she considers them stupid and treats them as such, disdaining their rough-and-tumble looks and uncultured accents. She'll put them both on the death list when their first year is up, and have them butchered without a second thought.

"You don't have to listen to him," I say quietly, as they haul me in front of Kade like a sacrificial offering. I have to fight to keep from struggling against them; their newborn instincts would automatically react in aggression to that. Instead, I eye them both calmly, steadily, and keep my posture relaxed. "You're much stronger than he is. The only thing he's counting on right now is the fact that you're too stupid to ever catch on to that little fact."

Their iron grip doesn't loosen, but they share a look. "He might be right, eh?" one of them whispers, scrunching up his face in thought. "The mistress tells us we'll be gettin' stronger with age, but even Lykes has trouble handlin' us when we're in a temper."

"The mistress lies," I say simply. "Your strength will fade at the year-mark, and they'll throw you to the fires, just as they have the thousands of other newborns—"

Kade strikes me in the face with a backhanded blow so hard that my neck cracks. My arms jerk back automatically with the hit, and the two newborns holding me react with vicious feral growls. All of them turn in on me at once, Kade shoving me backwards as the brothers attempt to pry me apart like a wishbone. "Like you threw my _brother_ to the fire?" Kade hisses, his breath like ice against my ear. "Because he wasn't _strong_ enough? Because he wasn't _smart_ enough? Because he was competition and you couldn't stand it?"

I yank my head away from his teeth. "Because Maria asked me to. I was following her orders. All I _ever_ did was follow her orders."

Kade pauses for a moment, his lips peeled back into a snarl. "She would never—"

"She would," I say flatly. "You know she would. She's capable of much more than that. You are not her confidante, no matter what she tells you. You're not even her partner. You are exactly what I was to her: nothing more than just another fu—"

My back hits the wall of the warehouse with a clang, and one of the windows above shatters in a burst of glass. The walls reverberate with the force of the hit, and rusted metal rains down clattering to the floor. The two vampires at my sides wrench at my arms until I begin to feel the horrifying sensation of joints splintering at my shoulders, and I let out a yell of pain when Kade's teeth latch onto my throat. He twists back, taking a chunk of crystal flesh with him, and a searing pain blisters from my neck all the way to my collarbone. Murder rises up like living shadows in the darkness, fiends of hatred and violence excited by the prospect of a kill.

I brace myself against the wall, arch up, and kick with both feet, sending Kade spinning across the warehouse floor. He lands on all-fours like a cat and hisses at me, a terrible chilling noise that brings back every half-forgotten memory of war, death, and Maria. I look at his cold red eyes and perfect face, and see only every battle I've fought and every life I've stolen. I wonder vaguely, in a dizzy haze of pain, if I'm actually looking at an image of myself; some warped circus mirror hell that shows only our deepest insides — our darkest secrets.

The two brothers haul me up by the arms and jump high into the air, nearly hitting the curved warehouse ceiling. Both fling me back down with newborn strength, and I slam into the cement floor so hard that it cracks beneath me. In half a second, Kade is on top of me, crouched at my chest, his feet digging into my ribs, his hand tearing at a handful of my hair. On either side of me, my arms are pinned to the floor with a crushing stomp, and I can hear the brothers breathing hard with excitement — this is how they kill their victims. This is how they'll tear me to pieces. Slowly, sickeningly, Kade runs a freezing cold finger down the line of my nose, his eyes glowing like demon coals.

"Where's your smart mouth now, huh?" he whispers, his lips almost touching my ear. For one wild, terrible second, I think he might kiss me. But he moves off me sideways, and stands to his feet, his eyes still burning on mine. "Rip him apart," he orders.

The two red-heads growl with matching leers. My head is smashed into the concrete again, then jerked to the side at an unnatural angle to fully expose my throat. The sting of newborn teeth pierces into my arms, my neck, my face, my chest, everywhere — with a messy, unpracticed brutality that hurts far worse than precision. The venom sizzles like boiling water against my skin, burning white-hot through every part of my body. I can't help but scream — a strange, guttural sound that doesn't even feel like it's coming from my own throat. Then the sound dies and all I can hear is the beat of rain on the warehouse roof, the snarls of the vampires on top of me, Kade's cold humorless laugh echoing off the walls.

And then I hear nothing, because the back of the warehouse explodes in a sudden ball of flame.

A rumble of blazing orange-red rolls out in a blinding flash, then retreats back in on itself with a deafening roar, lighting up the warehouse in a flickering fiery glow. The brothers scramble off me as if they've been shot, and Kade ducks down with his arms over his head as shrapnel knifes into the crates behind him. The explosion rocks the roof of the warehouse, shaking down loose tiles and breaking windows. The smoke plumes and curls up toward the ceiling, and out of the darkness a petite, feminine figure stands out against the background of flames.

I let out a low moan of fear. _Alice._

Kade rises back up slowly, his face alit with sudden exhilaration. "Well, well, well. Look who's little plaything disobeyed." The euphoria of rage and murder has created something insatiable in him, a macabre desire so much like Maria in spirit that it makes me want to gag. He prowls closer to Alice, making his way across the warehouse with smooth feline steps, looking her up and down. The spike of lust I feel from him sends me into a snarling frenzy, and both brothers have to hold me back was I fight to cut him off before he gets to her.

Alice makes no comment and doesn't move an inch. I can't see her expression in the silhouette from the fire, but I feel both fury and confidence radiating out of her, ten times hotter than the flames. I would have panicked to the edge of insanity, were it not for the absolute certainty in her aura. She knows something I do not — between the moment she left and the moment she returned, something had changed. Her little fists are clenched at her sides and her head is lowered down, her gaze glinting in the darkness as she follows Kade with her eyes.

He circles around her, his body flickering in and out of shadow. "You want to know what a real man feels like, sugar?" he asks her softly, a barely audible whisper above the flames. "How about I show you, right now, while Major Whitlock here has to watch?"

A small, terrified noise escapes my throat, but Alice merely lifts her hand.

"You want me?" she asks, in a flat, chilling voice I don't recognize. "Come and get me."

Kade laughs recklessly, and attacks her with a slow, arrogant sort of nonchalance, expecting to subdue her in seconds. But just barely — by just a fraction of an inch, she moves to the side. Kade careens past her and nearly loses his balance, thrown off by the miss. Snarling in rage he rounds back to lock a hand on her throat, only to find that she has already vanished. He whirls around, pulsing with humiliation and murder, and charges at her still, tiny little form as she waits with her eyes closed, seeing the future before it happens. Once again, he misses, almost pitching over into the fire behind her as he pinwheels his arms and tries to regain his senses.

Resting casually on the edge of a crate, Alice sniffs. "No wonder Jasper forgot your name."

The newborn brothers laugh at that comment, and are nearly in hysterics when Kade launches himself at Alice again and ends up spinning to the concrete with an enraged scream. I am torn between bursting with pride for her and dying of anxiety. I don't care how well she can see the future — I know I need to get between her and Kade before things go too far. Evasion tactics can only work for so long, and if he manages to get a hold of her even once, he will crush her like a piece of glass.

I turn to the brother on my right, and watch his face change as a wave of dissention slams into him as hard as brick wall. He actually stumbles back with the force of it, blinking, and I nod to Kade with a vaguely disgusted expression. "You know, just because he's sleeping with Maria doesn't mean he's the boss of you."

He swipes a hand beneath his nose. "It's true then, is it? Him and the mistress?"

"Hush up," the other brother hisses, darting a covert look at Kade. "Keep a tight hold, now— you remember wha' Lykes said. Think about our reward, then."

But his face, too, changes before the last word leaves his mouth. Both of them sway slightly as if they've been hit over the head, and I double the feeling of rebellion with an equal measure of jealousy and bravado, watching as Kade lunges after Alice once more. My heart ices over with fear for her at the twisted, demonic expression of fury on his face. If he ever manages to get his hands on her... if he catches her even once—

"Don't kid yourselves," I hiss, trying desperately to keep the fear out of my voice. "Every single reward for this will go to him. He'll be in Maria's bed by sundown, surrounded by human corpses, and you'll be thrown to bonfire," I spit out, as if that hadn't once been me. Is if that hadn't once been my life. "You've seen how they've killed the others, haven't you? How easily? Unless you've got a talent, and a damn good one, they'll murder you as soon as your year is up."

Both of them stand silent, and I watch the reflection of flames in their eyes, leaping orange amidst a hot glow of scarlet-red.

"Help me kill him," I say intensely, pouring compliance into their already-overflowing auras, and smile a smile that isn't mine — a familiar glint of devilish ambition I'd seen reflected a thousand times in Maria's beautiful face. "Join my army instead. We'll own the North. You'll never be killed, and you'll have all the blood you want. And the respect."

Their grip on me loosens entirely and both of them step away. They eye Kade with hatred and bloodlust, flexing their fingers as if to test their newfound freedom.

I breathe out a sigh of relief. Without another spoken word, we dash toward the fire together, the brothers disappearing into a blur of color against the heat waves of the flames. They reappear in front of Alice, staggered two feet apart, practically spewing fabricated emotions of rage, revenge, and murder. The feelings are so intensely malevolent that it changes the taste of the air — an acid-sharp stench of corpses and spice. One of them pushes Alice back with a meaty, calloused hand, completely blocking her from Kade's reptilian gaze.

"Stand aside then, Lovely. We'll be takin' it from here," he drawls, with an unnecessary cracking of his knuckles.

Kade glares at them murderously. "What the hell do you think you're doing?" he asks quietly.

"Sorry, mate. He made us a better offer, eh?" the other one replies, casting a glance to first brother, who chuckles darkly. "That he did."

Alice backs away from them uneasily, disturbed by the wildness in their eyes. She looks around as if to find me, but I am already there, gripping her upper arm so hard that she winces. "You promised. You _swore_."

She kicks her chin up and glares at me with that such a ferocious little expression that I'm not sure whether I want to yell at her or kiss her. Her golden eyes are blurry from smoke and adrenaline, and ash is smudged across both cheeks like rouge. Her voice quivers with emotion. "Maybe I have nothing to live for unless you're safe either," she says, biting her lip. "The moment I made the decision to come back, the vision changed. I saw us winning. I knew we could do it if we fought together. I had to come back, Jasper. Did you think I'd just leave you here to die?"

"You _swore_," I spit out, shaking her by the arm. The terror in my heart is still very fresh and very real, only growing with the sounds of snarling and screaming behind us as the brothers begin to tear Kade apart. She could have died. She still could, even now. At any moment. "This isn't exactly new to me, Alice. This is my life."

"No it's not."

I am suddenly so furious with her that I can't even speak. All I can think of is the lust in Kade Lykes's eyes as he prowled around her — and what he would have done if he had somehow managed to surprise her. She looks is so petite standing beside me, so breakable, so beautiful in that rain-soaked dress. The thought of Kade, or anyone else, hurting her pierces through me like a red hot fire-poker. Protectiveness and panic seep out of me unwillingly, and I know she feels it radiating through her arm because she jumps as she's been shocked, blinking up at me in surprise. Immediately, I drop my hand from her, my palm still tingling from where I touched her skin. We stare at each other for a long moment, and I think of the way her lips felt against mine for that brief, fleeting kiss — and the taste of an emotion I foolishly imagined she might feel.

"_Whitlock!" _

Kade's voice rasps out over the snapping flames, sounding hoarse and raw as if his larynx is nearly crushed. One of the brothers smacks him in the face, cutting off the rest of his words and knocking out a few diamond-like teeth, but I hold up a hand to stop them. They crouch over his supine body instead, growling, each gripping an arm and a leg as if they're about to pull him apart at the seams. Kade's white skin flickers orange in the firelight, distorted by the crisscross lines of teeth marks and raggedly torn flesh. Bloodlust and fear are knotted together there around predator and prey, twined in too tightly to discern which is which.

I tower over him, expressionless and waiting.

"You think you're free, but you're not," he whispers, his eyes wet with bitterness. "You were all she talked about for fifty years. You, and revenge, and what she lost when you went away. She'll never let you go. Never. She'll haunt you forever."

_She already does. _

I turn my back on him, the same way I turned my back on Soren Lykes so many years ago, the same way I turned my back on the hundreds of others before him. I might have the courage to give the order, but I don't have the stomach to look into their eyes while it's carried out. "Kill him."

"With pleasure," one of the brothers growls.

A sound like a strangled yelp, like the death scream of an animal, rises up behind me, followed by the unmistakable sound of tearing flesh. Alice flinches. I don't, but the sound rings in my ear over and over again like a church bell being struck with a hammer. It's hard to forget a sound like that, and hard to relish in it, no matter how deserving the enemy may have been. Toward the end of things, Maria once caustically sneered that I didn't have a taste for blood. She was right. I _don't_ have a taste for blood — not like her. Not ever.

The fire burns hotter against my back with the influx of kindling, flames leaping up to form writhing shadows against the warehouse walls. I turn around to find one of the brothers picking white fibers of flesh from beneath his fingernails, and the other kicking a dismembered head into the fire, waving away the reeking stench of purple-tinged smoke. Turned sideways in a bed of flames, I watch as Kade Lykes's agonized face blisters and melts.

"What're the huntin' grounds like up north?" one of red-heads asks. "Crowded, is it? Full up?"

Alice has both hands over her mouth in shock. Her aura vanishes and reappears again in a flash, and she turns to look at me like I'm a stranger. I realize that she has seen what I am about to do. The lying. The murder. The burning. The cover-up. And because I can taste the hint of disappointment in the air, I know she hates it. I ignore the dazed expression on her face and place my hands on her shoulders. Touching her skin is like touching fire — like grabbing a boiling hot kettle in both hands. The emotions within her are wild, fevered, and completely unhinged. Horror, worry, suspicion, protectiveness, depression. I have to wince and shake my head twice before I can focus enough to speak.

"I want you to run to New Orleans," I say steadily. "I want you to run to New Orleans and check into the first hotel you find. Any hotel on the edge of town. Stay there and wait."

Her mouth twists bitterly. "You'll meet me there?"

I don't answer. I turn away from her and start walking toward the newborns, picking up the fallen shards of icy flesh on the way. Now comes the hard part, the ugly part — the part where I become an executioner and a gravedigger all in one. Do I want her to stand next to me while I murder again? While I rip yet another throat and tear apart yet another body? Do I want her to help me stoke the flames and burn the pieces, scour the warehouse for cold marble? Do I want her to see me at my worst, my lowest, as the man I've been running from all this time? She's seen enough already, more than I ever cared to share.

"Just go, Alice. I don't want you here," I say harshly, knowing she'll take those words hard enough to leave, if only out of insult and injury.

She stares back at me with bright eyes, her chin trembling. "I'll see you in New Orleans, then" she says unsteadily, her voice cracking. "I'll wait for you there. I'll wait. I'll wait until you come back to me. I'll wait as long as it takes."

My chest aches again, like something coiling tight within me. As flawed as I am, I can't help but feel like flying at those words; the kind of words a man only hears once in a lifetime_. Why me?_ I feel like screaming at her again, needing a rational answer for this kind of unrelenting, undeserving affection_. Why did you choose me? _And yet, even as I lament her stubbornness and her poor decisions, a very quiet part of me feels horribly, unbearably... loved. I long to take her in my arms, touch her hair, hold her close, and tell her that I'll be there, that I won't let her down ever again. I long to reassure her the way a good man, a better man, would.

Instead I nod curtly, like a soldier, as if what she just said doesn't mean the world to me, as if I'm strong enough to let her go.

***

I run, not because Jasper tells me to, but because I can see what will happen if I don't.

If I don't run to New Orleans, he walk away from me on his own, that much is certain and solid. I can see his angry expression, the stubborn crease between his brows as he says something cruel and unnecessary. Again. _We're not doing this. Don't be stupid. I don't want you here. _I can't stand to see that frustrated look in his eyes again; I can't bear the sound of his snarling voice, the clenching of his fists. The thought of having to watch him turn his back on me and walk into the rain, is like a knife plunged straight into my heart.

So I run. I head out into the sideways wind and sheets of heavy rain, splashing through the knee deep water of the bayou and blinking against the patter on my cheeks. I run without thinking, I run without pausing, I run without even caring where I'm going, only heading east. The drum of rain against the water is like a pounding heartbeat; the fog rises up into a landscape of hovering ghosts. Lightning strikes in a roar of thunder and splits a cypress near me with an explosion of sparks, lighting up the water in glowing bluish-white.

I disappear within the flash, my body draining out of the present and into the future like a stab of electricity. The rain vanishes into a stiflingly warm night, with a high moon and singing cicadas, a mansion on a hilltop covered by a haze of purple-tinged smoke. I can see the double doors open to reveal a marble dance floor and a wide staircase, a glow of harsh yellow light and ringed chandelier candles.

And then I see her. I see Maria. She descends the staircase slowly, sauntering down the steps in black lace and red satin. She is not the ethereal creature I expected — her beauty is not the beauty of angels and fairytales, but the kind of blatant excess that drips sensuality and passion: her hair hangs around her shoulders in glorious black-brown coils, her lips are red as blood against her snowy skin. Her almond-shaped eyes gleam with triumph as she smiles, her perfect lips curving up into a mask of insincerity and carelessness.

"_You're late, lover."_

And there is Jasper, standing before her like lamb for slaughter. His shoulders drop into a hunch at her words and he hangs his head. I've never seen him look so broken, so sad. There is nothing left of him but a ghost, a transparent shell of nothingness.

"_I'm back,"_ he says tonelessly. _"For good."_

I come back to the present gasping for air, choking on the rain. I stumble like a blind woman and fall to the water with a splash, covered in mud, and swamp water. My mouth falls open soundlessly. I'm too horrified to scream, cry, or even breathe. The bayou lights up again as lightning streaks across the sky, and I feel the rumble of thunder in the ground beneath me, trembling beneath a layer of floodwater and fog. _This is the end_, I think numbly, rain burning into my blinking eyes._ There is nothing else. There is nothing left._

And then another vision comes — watery and unstable, like I'm watching it through a tilting mirror:

Jasper, with his arms around me, his face blank, his lips against my ear. _"I'm sorry."_

The two futures trade back and forth, one rising in intensity as the other fades, one gaining solidity while the other flickers. Jasper's decision changes again and again, and I watch, nauseated, as fate battles against choice in some absurd, bloodless mockery of war. Petrified, I keep running into the night, sobbing out great gulping breaths of horror and anxiety. I don't know which one is right. I don't know which one will happen. I don't know if he'll come back for me. I don't know if I'll ever see him again. My mind feels as though it's been ripped out of my head and thrown to the bottom of the sea. I'm drowning, I'm sinking, I'm disappearing into the black.

Frantically, I search for the vision that I've always been able to find, the one that's kept me anchored in the storm all this time, even in my darkest moments: Jasper saying my name, his thumb stroking the hollow beneath my ear. But my vision is blank. I can't see it. I can't see it, and this realization terrifies me in a way that nothing else ever has before — slaps me dumb with the kind of horror and disassociation that insane people must feel when they realize the world around them isn't real. Maybe it's the adrenaline, maybe it's the rain, maybe it's the thick layers of fog that surround me like a white-washed cage, but I can't see it.

I can't see it.

I can't see it.

* * *

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**A/N:** That was looooong. Proofing-reading alone took me just about forever. But we're getting really close to the end now, folks. Only two more chapters to go! Are you sad? I am. This has been way too much fun.


	19. Love

**Love**

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**.**

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* * *

Some see beauty in the flames, some see romance. I see neither.

What I see is a destroyer — a strange, otherworldly phenomenon that can't be explained or replicated in any other fashion. If you draw a flame, can you capture its light? If you mold it into clay, does it burn as it touches your skin? Flickering orange, blue-black at the center, a fire — a _real_ fire, glows so brightly that it sears against the backs of eyelids like a firebrand. It scorches your cheeks so hot that it feels as though the skin could blister right off. It doesn't just burn, it _devours_, disintegrates, turning immovable solid matter into nothing more than a wisp of curled black smoke.

If the human population could see fire through my eyes, they would never huddle around the hearth at Christmastime or sing merry tunes with candles held high in the air. Couples would never sip wine and make love to candlelight, and bonfires would never be built to stay the cold of a winter. No one ever sees beauty in a murderer or in a plague; no one in the path of a raging tornado would ever stop to admire its shape. There is nothing beautiful about a destroyer of life, no matter how magnificent it may appear in that first, awestruck glance. I learned that the hard way, on a road outside of Galveston, the night an angel-faced demon stole my life.

And I know that it isn't over. Maria isn't finished. She never will be. Fire never extinguishes on its own. If left unchecked, it will burn the very edges of the earth, eviscerating anything and everything that dares to stand in the way.

_She knows now_, I think numbly as I walk away from torched warehouse and into the rain. _She knows I'm alive and she knows I'm traveling with Alice._

Maria is not the type of woman to forgive and forget. What may have been seen as an abandonment before would now be seen as a betrayal. She will hunt me, and if she ever finds Alice and I together, this will all happen again — the fight, the fire, the killing, all of it. And the next time… who knows? We may survive, we may not. We may live only to be hunted again, only to have a life of constant running, fighting, and unrest. The same bloody, miserable life that I ran away from, all those years ago. Could I really drag Alice into all that, knowing what she'd have to face?

I stop by the chain-link fence, soaking wet and freezing, to watch the warehouse burn. The flames are fighting against the pounding rain, grasping up at the night sky with glowing, claw-like tendrils. It will be a battle; the fire is uncontainable, but the rain is dampening its fuel. I slick a hand over my wet face and close my eyes.

I have a choice. One final, irreversible decision to make: Do I stay or do I leave?

If I stay with Alice, she will be in constant danger. Maria will hunt us, and others may too. Tonight was only the beginning of what I fear could be a resurgence of my past. If I remain with Alice, she will automatically become a part of that life, just because she's with me. She will always be a target. She will always be in danger.

And if I leave… I have no choice but to go back to Maria. I will have no other way of assuring Alice's safety. As long as I'm with Maria, as long as I'm giving her what she wants and keeping her close to me, she won't seek out Alice for revenge. If I lie, if I let her believe that Alice meant nothing to me and has no hold on my heart, Maria will be content enough to punish me and me alone. The thought of having to say those words, actually speak them out loud, is sickening: _She meant nothing to me. A chore, really. I only used her for what she could give me. No one could ever captivate me the way you do, Maria my love, mi vida. I've already forgotten everything about her. She's nothing more than a girl I once met and used and left behind. _

I shudder against the rain. A knot of emotion is in my throat, a tangle of memories and feelings that makes me think I couldn't bear to say those words, not ever. Not under any circumstances. I would kill Maria before I would have to taste that lie in my mouth.

_Do I stay? Do I leave?_

The last corner of the warehouse catches fire, and I push my way through the chain-link gate. I return the hotel room by way of the alley, wading through an ankle-deep slush of mud and garbage. Under the cover of rain and darkness, I crawl up the fire escape into the quiet room, dripping rain and dirt all over the carpet. The light is still on and the suitcase is lying open on the bed, looking as though it has been pawed through with wet, dirty hands. Some of Alice's things are missing, but I doubt she was the one who took them. Kade Lykes and his cronies likely took them as souvenirs to bring back to Maria; flags of victory soaked in Alice's light sunshine scent. It doesn't matter. Whatever they took is burning in the warehouse now, along with four glistening white bodies. I take out one change of clean clothes out, leave the rest, and head for the bathroom.

The water is scalding hot against my icy skin, but I stand under the shower for almost thirty minutes, bowing my head forward to touch my forehead against the tile. I can feel it burning down the line of my back, numbing the curve of my spine, dripping off the ends of my hair. The water runs black beneath me with soot and mud, and the stench of smoke swirls down the drain. It is almost baptismal, this ritualistic cleansing, except backwards — instead of being reborn, I am dying. Instead of beginning anew, I am thrown headlong into my past.

I try to keep my mind blank, but the scene replays like a film before my eyes: Kade's harsh laugh, the feel of teeth piercing through marble skin, a face melting sideways the fire. Another execution, another bonfire veiled in purple-tinged smoke. _"I love this smell on you,"_ Maria had once said, stroking through my hair when I'd come back from the bonfire. _"It makes me feel like I'm invincible. Like nothing could ever stop me." _She often said things like that, things that made me realize how far I had really gone, how deep of a hell I was really in. I shiver.

And Alice...

Alice. If it weren't for me, she never would have been a part of that hell. If it weren't for me, she'd be in Middlebury now, safe with Margaret in her little house with her business and her friends, and a life that must have been so much better than this. I squeeze my eyes shut against the image of her frightened face. I never, ever want her to have to feel that kind of terror again. She didn't deserve it. And what she _did_ deserve — a safe, peaceful life, I could never give her.

_Do I stay? Do I leave? _

I dry off and dress again, pressing my lips together when I button up the forest green shirt I found in the suitcase. I remember the day Alice had pulled it out of a shopping bag and held it up against my eyes. _"Perfect,"_ she'd said — ironically describing the one thing I could never hope to be. But then she always seemed to look at me like that, like she was blind to the scars crisscrossing my skin like tiny un-erasable sins. Her scent is all over the forest green fabric where her hands had touched the shirt and folded it into the suitcase. If I lift the collar up it's almost as if she's here with me, straightening out the wrinkles by brushing her little hands across my chest.

Breathing hard and unevenly, I towel off my hair and pack the suitcase again. The time on the bedside clock reads 4:09 AM. No matter what I decide to do, I have to get out of town before the sun comes up. Sooner or later Maria will realize her men won't be coming home, and when she does she'll be out for blood. I either need to be right there with her to throw her off course, or right next to Alice to protect her. I cram on my boots, pick up my sopping wet jacket, and head downstairs to the lobby.

It is dead silent downstairs — none of the humans are awake yet and the street outside is still dark. The once-helpful concierge is lying facedown on the desk in a puddle of bloody papers, his hand still clutching the phone. Even congealed, the scent of blood is enough to make my head fuzzy, but I stride over to him anyway, screwing up my mouth in determination. I replace the receiver back on the hook and lay his hand down gently next to his head, sickened with guilt that this strange little man had to die because of me. I wonder vaguely if they had questioned him first to get information, or if they just killed him and marched right up the stairs. A ring of keys rests on a hook behind the desk, and I search through them until I find one labeled _laundry_.

The laundry room is small and damp-smelling, lit only by a line of bare bulbs dangling from chains. I shake my wet jacket out once and remove the copy of Great Expectations from the pocket — now so completely soaked so that the pages are rippled and bowed. As the washer begins to hum and churn suds, I pick back up the book and gingerly open it to the middle section. A dried spruce twig sits there among the damp pages, looking small and forlorn against the faded letters. I stare for a long moment and then reach for it, holding it gently to my nose. The fresh green scent of spruce echoes back at me, along with a heart-skipping hint of sunshine, of Alice.

I laugh humorlessly and press the heel of my hand to my forehead. It still smelled the same. Even after being soaked in rain, in mud, in smoke... even after decades of waiting and dreaming, this determined little twig still smells exactly the same. Like sunshine, like Alice, like hope. With a burning chest and tightened jaw, I put the spruce twig back between the pages. I close the book again, and dust the little brown needles from my hands. The fresh sunshine scent remains embedded in my skin in a way that the smoke and rain could not, lingering in the air as if Alice is standing right beside me.

Dazed, I slide to the floor next to the washer, and lean my head back against the metal surface, closing my eyes. _Do I stay? Do I leave? _I wait there with my eyes closed, deliberating, breathing in her scent, until the washer finally rumbles to a stop. I pull my wet jacket out, snap it a couple of times, then fold it over my arm, knowing it will dry as I run.

I gather up the book and the suitcase, lock the door behind me, and cautiously return to the lobby. The dead concierge is still undiscovered, and when I look out the window I can see that the rain has finally drizzled down to a weak patter. Dawn is lighting the horizon, a dusty pink color that Alice referred to as "rose." I had always admired the shade before; it was the first layer of a new day and a new possibility. Now, though, it only looks like the coming of a decision I don't want to make. I replace the keys on the hook behind the concierge and walk out the hotel doors like any other businessman traveling the country: a suitcase, a button down shirt, a coat folded over my arm. I stride down the empty sidewalk as if I didn't just murder four of my own kind and burn down a warehouse to hide the evidence. I walk as if I'm not wracked with guilt and indecision.

The smell of rain is thick in the air, mingling with the barely detectable hint of smoke coming from the industrial yard. Because there is no red glow above the buildings behind me, I can see that the rain had won the war; the fire is nothing more than a mess of smoldering embers and wreckage now, stifled by its own lack of fuel. The city sings with drips and drizzles as water pours off rooftops and streetlights and hits the puddles below. But other than that, the world is silent around me. This is my moment and my moment alone. With dread, I splash through the quiet sidewalks, watching as the light winks off the water and turns the puddles into shining yellow pools.

At the crossroad leading out of town, I stop. East to New Orleans or south to Monterrey, two directions pulling at me with equal intensity. _Do I stay? Do I leave?_

I take two steps toward Monterrey and stop, then four steps toward New Orleans before turning back south again. Monterrey, New Orleans, Monterrey, New Orleans... I stand there in the in the middle of the road for over almost thirty minutes, until the sun peeks up over the low hills and the autumn birds begin to sing; until the humans around me begin to wake and shatter the silence with their voices, yells, and sirens. When the shadows deepen and the feel of the sun intensifies on my sparkling skin, I retreat into the shadows and continue my deliberation in the woods, pacing up and down the deer paths in indecision.

Over an hour later, I make a solid decision, and run south. I reach as far as Corpus Christi before I feel a shuddering sickness course through my body, a revulsion so powerful that I actually stumble and fall to my knees. Monterrey is only miles away, and Maria will be waiting for me in the ballroom, that familiar smile of victory and ownership on her face. She'll hold out a condescending hand for me, her accented voice saying something witty and meaningless, professing love even as she plots to hurt me, kill me, or worse. The thought of touching her, the thought of hearing her voice, is more than I can bear. I realize then, with a sinking heart, that I can never return to Maria. Not even to protect Alice. I would kill myself first, or have the Volturi do it for me.

But still... _Do I stay? Do I leave?_

I head back up the coast toward New Orleans, digging a hand through my hair in frustration. If I'm not physically with Maria, keeping an eye on her, how will I ever know if Alice is safe? Even if I separate myself from Alice's life completely, there's no guarantee that Maria won't deliberately seek her out just to punish me. And without me there to protect her... A carrion crow caws loudly in the trees above me, and I shake my head with a growl of self-hatred. Then again, I seem to be a complete failure at protecting her when I'm with her, too.

I turn west, I turn north, I turn east. I move in circles that have no endings and pace back and forth on the same worn out trail until I know every rock and every tree. I think until my head is about to explode; I miss Alice so bad that it's like a constant stabbing pain in my chest.

For three whole days, I wander up and down the gulf coast of Texas.

By the time I reach New Orleans, I am exhausted, broken, and literally trembling with anxiety. The bells above an old Catholic church ring back and forth eight times; it's just after sunset, when the air is still wet with heat and reeking of human sweat and blood. I have no way of knowing if Alice is even still here; after three days of waiting, why would she be? As I make my way through the quieter alleyways to avoid the gathering throng on Bourbon Street, I am devastated by the thought that she could have given up on me. She had every right to, I know. She had every right to leave in search of her real family — her amber-eyed coven of mind readers and mothers and doctors.

But as I round the east edge of town, I catch a winding breath of sunshine amidst the stale, heavy air. Shaking, I follow the trail all the way up to a three-story green-shaded hotel with decorative iron bars on the windows and clematis covering the crumbling walls. Her scent feels like a gasp of air after drowning, like the first drink of blood after months of self-starvation. Breathing in that warm familiar smell and imagining her face, I don't know which would be worse: discovering that she already left without me, or finding her still waiting. I clench the suitcase tighter in my hands and stride through the open doors of the hotel lobby.

A tiny, grey-haired woman sits behind the front desk. She eyes me with contemptuous suspicion, her gaze narrowing at the sight of my beauty. "Can I help you, sir?"

"No."

I pass by her without another glance as she scoffs at my rudeness, and follow Alice's scent to the left into a hallway. It leads up the stairs to the second floor, where the scent grows stronger and more recent. Here, again, I pause in the doorway, and the same indecision floods through me again, staring down a dimly lit hallway lined with orange-glass lights. _Do I stay? Do I leave?_

I know I'm inexplicably drawn to Alice, to her smile, to her presence — drawn by some invisible force I can't see or fight. But what is stronger in me? The desire to be with her or the desire to protect her? Am I so selfish that I can't leave her alone, even when I know I'm putting her in danger? I shake my head slowly, defeated. _No. I can't do this to her. I can't be a part of her life. Not like this. _If anything, I will watch her from a distance — I will guard her to make sure that no one harms her, without being close enough to affect her with my past. I turn around on numb, impossibly heavy legs, let the door shut behind me, and head back down the stairs.

Halfway down my head begins to swim, overwhelmed with images of Alice, little snapshots that flash before me like light flickering through leaves. Alice laughing, Alice dancing across the room with a bolt of fabric in her arms, Alice staring up at a starlit sky. Alice spinning in front of mirror, admiring the cut of a new Dior dress. Alice beside me on the porch swing, a soft smile on her face as she listens to me read. I see her graceful hands, the slope of her nose, her full bottom lip. Soft golden eyes staring up at me with nothing but acceptance.

I look down at the cuffs of my forest green shirt, peeking out from beneath my jacket. _"Perfect,"_ she had said, in a voice that clearly meant it. About me. Me. _Me_. With all my faults, with all my sins, with all the things I've said and done that have hurt her and put her in danger, she still looks at me as though I'm worth loving. As though I'm worth _her_.

My eyes blur until I can't see the steps in front of me. Chest heaving, I whirl around again, and clamber back up the stairs. I charge down the hallway and let the door slam behind me, not caring about noise or disturbing others or _anything_ else. I can't do it. I just can't do it. I can't leave her, I can't. I suddenly want to see her face so badly that it feels as if I will crack and fall apart. I don't care about the walls I've so carefully built around myself or the risk I'm taking right now, or even the fact that there is no turning back after this moment, no going back after I walk through her door. I just want to see her. I just want to see her.

The scent stops at the very last door, and I stand there for a few panting breaths before I raise my hand to knock. The sound echoes like a gunshot in the quiet hallway; it actually startles me, as if I didn't believe what I was really doing until right this second.

Alice doesn't answer like I thought she would, I can hear nothing from inside the room, no signs of movement or life. _Is she there?_ I wonder, pressing my palm flat against the door. Though I have no scientific reason to guide me, I feel as though she is. Back in the warehouse, when she told me she'd wait for me, she meant it. She'd wait the three days I'd been wandering, and a part of me knew she'd wait even longer than that. I knock again with no answer, so I try the handle. The door opens too easily; it hadn't been locked — it hadn't even been shut all the way. Stomach quivering with nerves, I push it open and look into the room.

"Alice?"

She isn't there. The light is on, but it's empty and quiet as a tomb, unsettled, stained with the residue of fear, depression, and unease. Her coat is on one of the beds, but neither has been touched at all; the covers are still hospital-straight and perfect. A trail of dried mud and leaves tracks across the carpet, leading into the darkened bathroom. Everything is so still that for a moment, I think she must be gone, out hunting or something. But the scent in the room is too fresh, too vivid, and the bathroom door is ajar, with a smudge of mud on the handle.

"Alice?" I call out again.

Worried now, I step toward the bathroom. As soon as I touch the smooth wood of the door, I feel it. The most intense, horrific mess of emotions I've ever felt. It is beyond both anger and depression, beyond hopelessness or fear. There is no word for it, other than "black." Black, with the disjointed needle pricks of insanity, as if the emotion has been smashed apart and put back together again in the wrong order; a jigsaw with scattered, broken puzzle pieces jammed together with no rhyme or reason. Sick with fear, I open the door and turn on the light.

Next to the porcelain bathtub, Alice is crumpled on the tile.

The suitcase drops to the middle of the bathroom floor with a clatter. "Alice?" I whisper, walking toward her on unsteady legs. She doesn't even acknowledge me. Lifeless and completely blank, she only lays there in a puddle of mud, with leaves stuck to her arms and her hair, the very image of a beaten angel. The fabric of her ruined violet dress is twisted and bunched beneath her, and her slender arms are wrapped tightly around her own body. My heart clenches. Still raw from the warehouse, my emotions tumble out before I can help it, and I find myself on my knees beside her. Her eyes are open, but shadowed and unseeing, not focused on anything. She feels miles away, and I could die of guilt. She hadn't been this frightened in the warehouse, but the adrenaline must have worn off in the past three days, revealing the danger she had been in. The danger I had _put_ her in. Alice, beautiful, sunshine Alice, had probably never even contemplated such a nightmare of a night.

I say her name again, but she doesn't even look at me, only continues to stare blankly at the wall. Never in my life have a felt a greater need to hold someone in my arms. But she is so spun-glass fragile that a whisper of breath could break her. As gently as I can, I touch her hair, struggling to keep my emotions reigned in.

She shudders at my touch.

"I didn't know," she whispers after a moment, so quietly that I almost miss it. "I didn't know if... I didn't know if…"

She opens and closes her mouth several times, as if the next words are too unbearable to say aloud. I bend my head down and make a soft shushing noise against her ear.

"I'm sorry," I say, hopelessly inadequate.

Her face crumples. For the first time ever, because I simply can't stand not to, I wrap my arms around her and hold her to my chest. The steady rise and fall of her breathing against me feels like a heartbeat. With her in my arms like this, her lips barely touching my neck, all of my practiced barriers crack. I am suddenly unable to control myself, unable to stop touching her. I have contained this emotion for so long now that this tiny bit of release is almost painful. I move my hands in ceaseless rhythm, slipping them against her hair, grazing the silk of her dress. There is too much tension in my fingers, I know, but I am beyond being careful.

I wait for her to break, to melt into me, but she remains completely motionless, like a statue carved of grief. I would have worried, were it not for the gentle fluttering of her eyelashes against her smooth white cheeks.

After what seems like hours, she finally pulls away.

The sudden lack of contact disturbs me more than I thought possible, and I reach for her again before I can stop myself, cupping her chin so she will look at me. Her eyes are deep and sorrowful, but she holds me with a gaze so direct and steady that it makes me shiver. There is nothing hidden there; everything she feels is displayed absolutely openly, almost like a challenge to me, like an unspoken dare. My eyes drift to her mouth, and I watch as she parts her lips in a shaking inhalation. She stares at me with that strange expression again, the one that makes me feel like she is waiting for something. I don't move though, and neither does she. We only stare at each other for a long, unbearable minute, until she finally turns away.

Sadness, awful, terrifying sadness emanates from her as she reaches out to turn on the water in the bathtub, starting the shower. The gentle sound of running water startles us both, neither one of this feels as though this is real. She slowly stands to her feet with her back to me, revealing the long line of pearl buttons that undo her dress. "Will you help me?"

I draw in a sharp breath. My first instinct is to say no, because this feels dangerous — far too dangerous. But I stand up anyway, my eyes locked on the white curve of her neck.

When my hands undo the first of the tiny buttons, it feels like falling headfirst a pool of crystal clear water, like standing on the edge of a cliff with the wind rushing at my face. Her skin and the silk are the same texture, the same cool softness. Brushing my fingers against her, I can feel her every shiver, every sigh. I think of how easy it would be to take another step forward and kiss her neck, her ear, her shoulder — how easy it would be to lose myself, to forget my stern promises and self-accusations. To forget every reason I had for waiting this long. Somewhere between the first button and the last, I stop breathing altogether. The roar in my ears is louder than the rush of water behind us.

Alice slides the loose material away from her shoulders, and it floats to the floor in a puddle of violet silk. She has nothing on beneath, and I think that if she turns around to look at me, if I let myself look into her eyes, there will be no going back. As it is, I am already reaching for her waist, longing curve my fingers around her and run a hand up her stomach, to pull her back into me. But she doesn't turn, and doesn't speak. She only steps forward into the bathtub and closes the curtain behind her without a backwards glance.

Shaken, I simply stand there with a hand clutched at my chest, breathing in and out raggedly. In the steamed-up mirror across from me, a stranger with amber eyes looks back me with the quaking, terrified expression of realization. This thing I had been running from all along, this feeling I had been determinedly hiding, is now unavoidably apparent. Blindly, I push out of the warm bathroom and stumble back into the bedroom, closing the door behind me and leaning my head back. _This is out of control_, I think. _I__ am out of control._

I rake my hand over the switch and turn the light off, flooding the room with darkness. Breathing hard, I retreat to the furthest corner of the room hide in the shadow, trembling at what I had come so close to actually doing. For one wild second I try to imagine how she would have responded, then clench my jaw and look out the moonlit window, muttering to myself. The idea of having to spend the night with Alice in a hotel has never felt so uncomfortable before. Feverishly, I hope she manages to find a change of clothes in the suitcase I left in the bathroom; in this raw, scattered state, I don't know if I can handle a completely naked Alice again.

Her coat is on the bed closest to the window, so I take the other bed and drag it another two feet away. I nervously debate just leaving the room and going on a hunt before she comes back out, but I know that my current heightened emotions would make that very dangerous. With a sigh, I give up and lie down on my back, covering my face with my arm. I have no idea what I'll say to her. No idea what will happen. No idea if I can control myself. The water in the bathroom stops, and I stare at the moonlit ceiling, muttering another curse.

A few minutes later, Alice flicks off the bathroom light and steps into the room. In the dim light, I can make out the shape of her in the doorway, wearing nothing but one of my dress-shirts. The cuffs are past her fingertips, the edges falling to her knees. It is ridiculously, outrageously sexy, and lust for her sinks into my stomach, even as I clench my jaw and look away. She doesn't pause, doesn't falter, doesn't even hesitate for even a moment — instead of heading for her own bed, she turns and crawls onto mine. I hold my breath when she wraps an arm around me and curls silently into my side. I let it out shakily when her head rests against my chest. Her damp hair smells like the flowers and sunshine, like everything good and precious I have ever tasted.

She is quiet for a moment. "I didn't know if you were coming back."

And suddenly I know the reason behind all this fear and sadness: Me. She was worried about _me_. Emotion sweeps through me, a bright, golden emotion like what I had felt from her that very first night when I had taken her hand. I can't help it, I can't stop it. With a great deal of transparent tenderness, I wrap my arms around her and bend my head to rest against hers. The emotion seeps out of me before I can even attempt to hold it back, and in response, I feel her body relax. She closes her eyes, and when her breathing slows, I realize that she is no longer with me — she is in the future, wading through the snapshots of uncertain, happier times.

I stay in the present, with my eyes wide open, and wonder when it was that I had fallen in so love with her, and how I'll ever be able to let her go.

* * *

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**A/N:** I'll be traveling for the next week and likely unable to write until I come home, so it will take me a little longer than usual to update. I know, I know... bad timing. But a girl's best friend only gets married once (well, hopefully anyway). And if it makes you feel any better, I have to wear a horrific pink dress with honest-to-God ruffles. That's punishment enough, I'd say.


	20. Law of Gravity

**Law of Gravity**

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In the morning, we say nothing.

When dawn begins to warm the city skyline and casts a violet-blue glow against the hotel walls, I move away from Jasper and sit up, wrapping my arms around my legs. My skin looks odd in this light, porcelain tinged blue by morning. It looks like I'm bruised, and maybe I am — this silence between us feels almost physically painful. Jasper sits up too, and the two of us stay there, side by side, saying nothing, both of us looking out the window as if the new day might have all the answers to our unspoken questions. After a few long minutes, Jasper gets up, goes into the bathroom, and shuts the door behind him.

I know what he's doing because I've already seen it in a vision: leaning against the sink with both palms on the counter, his eyes steady on his own reflection. He will stare at himself like this until I knock on the door, until I forcefully tear him away from whatever new form of self-hatred and punishment this unmoving stand-off with the mirror represents.

He's made a decision, and a bad one, though not nearly as terrifying as the choice to return to Monterrey and Maria. He doesn't want to stay with me anymore — that much is clear, but he can't leave me either. So he'll take me north until he feels it's safe and tell _me_ to leave instead, the same way he did when we were trapped in the warehouse. As if being at his side holds the same level of terror, the same level of danger. But instead of walking away then as any normal man broken would do, I can see that he will remain on the edges of my life forever, watching from a distance to assure my safety. He will never truly leave me, but we will never be truly _together_ either, because he's deeply afraid of something that I can't see or understand, and that fear outweighs any selfish desires of his own.

I hate him for this. I love him for this. I don't know how to make it right.

Slowly, I stand up from the bed and wander over the to bathroom door. I put one hand on the handle and press my ear against the wood to hear Jasper's slow, steady intake of breath from the other side. There is a quiet stutter of air, and I know he knows I'm there — he can probably feel my frustration emanating through the door. For a moment I wait for him to open it, and realize with a sinking heart that he never will. Not on his own. He won't answer unless I knock, and I won't knock unless I know he'll answer. Our fears and insecurities suddenly seem despairingly foolish; we're acting like children instead of the adults we actually are, we're acting like the fear of rejection is greater than the hope of love.

Sighing, I tap my knuckles against the wood.

After a couple of agonizing minutes, the door finally opens, and both of us try to get through it at once, awkwardly bumping into each other. To touch him now is an ache in my chest, a burning in my throat that has nothing to do with hunting or blood. I move past him into the bathroom, and as I do I swear I can feel his fingertips between my shoulder blades, just barely brushing the cotton of my shirt. I shiver, but when I turn around he isn't even looking at me, only taking an old book out of his jacket pocket and brushing a thumb over the faded cover.

We check out of the hotel just as the sun crests the horizon, and make out way into the shadowed parts of the streets. The world around us is just awaking, oddly normal display in comparison to the tension between the two of us. Shopkeepers unlock doors, traveling businessmen in fedoras head for the train, and an old woman puts out a saucer of milk for a sickly-looking cat. Someone turns on a radio, and cheerful jazz music pours out into the quiet morning, an annoyingly unfitting soundtrack for my mood.

I'm wearing an old dress the color of a robin's egg that doesn't match the season or the temperature, certainly not one of my favorites and certainly not my first choice. It was the only thing left in the suitcase though after Maria's minions pawed through my clothes — that and a set of delicate French lingerie that looks and feels odd beneath the simple blue cotton. I feel wretchedly ugly and unkempt, and for once avoid looking at myself in the darkened windows of the stores we pass.

Jasper walks beside me with his hands in his pockets, and it hurts to remember the way his arms had felt around me last night. His entire body had moved to embrace me, the whole length of him twining around me until I couldn't tell where I ended and he began. He had touched me too, ceaselessly, rhythmically, running a hand over nearly every part of me that he could reach: my arm, my shoulder, my back, my neck, my collarbone, and the ribs just to the side of my breast. His deliberate touch after so long an absence made it seem like he was a painter completing the final details of a masterpiece: each stroke was slow and purposeful, with an intense single-minded focus.

Now though, he keep is keeping his distance, both physically and emotionally. And even though he's walking right next to me, I've never felt more alone.

We walk for what seems like days, saying nothing, until the landscape changes from low and wet to high, dry, and littered with golden leaves. The trees around us are aspens now, tall and speckled white, with flickering leaves that look like fire and smell like autumn. We pass through a valley that perhaps no human has every wandered through before, a long line of gold surrounded by a wall of aspens on either side, an aisle carpeted by freshly fallen leaves. Without even verbalizing the decision, we both slow as we pass through this place, and when we reach the lowest point of the valley, where the sky is only visible in a thin ribbon of blue above us, Jasper stops.

I know what this is — I can see it before it happens. This is where he tells me to go on without him. This is where he says goodbye. It doesn't matter that it's midday, or that we are in the middle of nowhere, or that I haven't had time to say what I need to say or hear what I need to hear. Jasper's limit has finally been reached, and I know without even glimpsing the future that he won't take so much as a single step further. Not today. Not with me. I stop too, and struggle to catch my breath; I am panicking, and something that feels like insanity is slowly beginning to choke off my air supply.

I don't even bother turning around. "Why?"

He seems almost startled that I've spoken, and is silent for a moment before I hear the material of his jacket move up in a shrug. "What do you mean?"

"You know what I mean," I hiss, whirling around. Suddenly, I am furious with him, absolutely incensed. If he's going to walk out on me, if he's going to pretend like none of this mattered, and that I don't mean anything to him, then he can at least be man enough to own up to it. He can at least be man enough to give me a reason. "_Why?_"

He scowls at me. "Why, what, Alice?"

Glaring, I stalk toward him like a wildcat and shove a hand into his chest. "Why are you doing this to yourself? Why are you doing this to _us_? Why?" I punctuate each question with another shove, satisfied when he stumbles back, looking at me in alarm. "Why are you leaving when I know you want to stay? Why are you pretending like I don't matter? Why do you let your dead-and-over-with past dictate every god-awful decision you make? And why are you walking out on me _now_, when you could have left _months_ ago— before I fell, before you made it impossible for me to let you go? Why, huh? _Why_?"

When his back hits the aspen tree behind him and shakes down a rain of leaves, Jasper's eyes flash and he grabs my hands. I struggle against him and he moves at me in a predatory motion I recognize and fear, gripping my wrists together so tightly that he could crack them into a thousand pieces. He clenches his teeth and twists me around until he pins my back to the tree, trapping me there between the smooth bark and a wall of uncontained anger. The look on his face is unrecognizable and injured, as if each of my questions had beaten something out of him and left him for dead. His emotions are terrifyingly obvious, so wild and uncontrolled that it frightens me. He is desperate and vulnerable and furious, and each facet of his pain seeps into me too.

"Why?" I demand one more time, feeling like I'm about to cry.

"Because I love you!" he yells out, inches away from my face. "I _love_ you, Alice."

For a moment, I am stunned silent. I watch in numb disbelief as he releases me and turns away, his head in his hands, as if he didn't mean to say what he just said, as if hearing the words out loud in his own voice is what finally broke him. The word 'love' seems to echo in the quiet forest, falling down on me with a fresh wave of leaves. I blink my eyes rapidly; there is an odd prickling sensation beneath my eyelids. He loves me. He loves me. He _loves_ me. I keep repeating it over and over again in my head, until I'm finally able to comprehend that it's true— that it must be true. Jasper loved me, and that's what this, all of this, has been about. I reach forward and tentatively place a hand on his back. "Jasper—"

"Don't."

I pull my hand back and clutch it at my chest, undeterred. Whatever this resistance is, it comes from love or from the fear of love, not out of lack of feeling for me. No matter the circumstances, no matter his decision, I at least had that. He is afraid, just as I am afraid. We both stand here terrified to lose the one thing that has held us together all these long, lonely years. Staring at him then, at the familiar line of his back and his tense, guarded posture, I can't help myself. All of the secrets I've been holding in come tumbling out at once.

"I told you, when we first met, that I'd seen you before," I say, speaking softly. "That wasn't the truth. Not the whole truth anyway."

I take a deep breath, feeling lightheaded. "The truth is, I know my name because I heard you say it. The truth is, I knew your face before I knew anything else. You were the first thing I saw when I awoke. It was you, that vision of you, my first and my best, that gave me the strength to leave that mirror room and live. I searched for you for _twenty-eight years_. Every day. Every day I'd watch you in visions, every day I'd wonder and hope. Before the diner, before everything. Even when I was in Middlebury, even when I was with Margaret, even when I had a life and a home and a job, and should have been happy."

My voice wavers a little, and I press the back of my hand to my mouth. Jasper's shoulders straighten and he turns slightly, still not looking at me, but listening.

"I never stopped hoping," I say after a moment, my voice gaining strength again. "I never stopped. Not even when it seemed impossible. Not even when it seemed like fate would never let it happen. I knew you before I ever knew anything else, and if I can't have that— if I can't hope for that, for you, then I have nothing."

Jasper is so still that he could have been carved of marble, and he stares at the leaf-covered ground with hard, unblinking focus. "Why?" he whispers, echoing my own question from earlier. A rolling tremor moves through him, and through me, an emotion that feels like a wave about to break.

I reach out again, and this time he doesn't flinch away from me. I put my hand on the side of his face, stroking the ridges of a dozen crescent-shaped scars. Each scar seems precious somehow, a tangible map of all he had fought and survived through, a visible representation of a heart that never gave up or gave in. This is what I love about him the most: this fierce, unbeatable spirit of his — a strength that never dies or fades, no matter what the hell he has to walk through. I need this part of him, just as he needs my hope and brightness, just as we both need to know peace, love, and family.

My mouth trembles violently. "Because in all that I've said and done... in all that I've learned and loved and lived, my life has only ever been nothing more than the hope of loving you."

Jasper's eyes move to meet mine, his gaze blazing and almost painful in its intensity. He stares at me without speaking, and his chest heaves as he takes in three ragged breaths. Something forever changes in those three moments — I watch as his decisions visibly melt from fury, to passion, to love.

And then suddenly the world falls out from underneath me, because lifts me off my feet.

The first kiss is not a barely-there brush against my mouth, but crushing embrace that I feel coursing through every inch of me. This time there is no gentleness, no timidity. He kisses me like he's been dying of thirst and I'm his first cool drink, touches me as if I'm the only thing that could quench the fire. The passion he'd been holding back is now wildly, beautifully obvious, sparking against my own and making it twice as urgent and visceral. My body melts, my mind glazes over. His arms are the only thing keeping me from falling to leaves beneath us, his slow-moving lips are an aching contrast to the tension in his hands.

I open my mouth as if it is the most natural thing in the world, as if my lips had been made to move against his. _This is Jasper,_ I think, my head spinning. _This is the real Jasper_. All that he had had been hiding, all that he had been guarding. All that he had never let me see. His hands, his lips, his cool breath against my mouth. The scent of him surrounds me until I feel I'm drowning in it — cedar and leather and something else new and indescribably, blissfully sweet. His fingers tighten at my response, digging into my hair and my back, and I feel myself being shifted as he falls to the ground with me still in his arms. He presses me back against the leaves, and pulls away for one dizzying moment to look into my eyes.

I ache at the expression on his face, so open and honest that I barely even recognize him. Jasper, my Jasper, finally free of the walls that cage him, finally free of the ghosts that haunt his every step. What it was that released him, I don't know. And right here and now, I couldn't care less. I only know that it's a redemption story, our redemption story, permanent ink scrawled out on faded yellowed paper, the perfect ending sentence bringing it to a close.

He bends his head down again, and his lips meet mine with such burning undiluted, unbearable love that I feel I could fall apart as his touch. And I know it's not a vision, and I know it's a dream, not a transparent image that will fade when I open my waking eyes — not this time.

Not ever again.

***

At some point between the beginning and the end, I realize there is no one else in my world or in my heart — there never was. The broken memory of Maria disappears like glass crushed to dust and blown away, taking every bit of hesitation with her. I have never felt like this, I have never touched like this. I have never lost control like this, not even in my most heated moments of passion or battle. I forget where I am, I forget what I'm doing, I even forget my name. There is only Alice. Only Alice, and this uncontrollable, uncontainable emotion that I finally, finally recognize as love.

And it hits me twice as hard and twice as deep, because I can feel it radiating from her too. It is pure and golden, an emotion so breathless that it tangles up in my throat, sinks into my stomach, and melts every thought from my head. There was pain once, I know, some distant time when I was dead inside and alone. But the feel of her hands in my hair heals everything, the movement of her lips against mine erases it all. Every scar is gone. Every wound is healed. Every dark memory fades at this new golden light.

I take off my jacket without ever breaking our touch, tossing it aside into a bed of autumn leaves. One thing at a time, I take away every barrier; hers, mine, anything that stands between me and her skin, anything that lingers between her heart and mine. When there is nothing left but the two of us, I draw back to look into her eyes. She is gazing up at me with an intoxicating mix of desire and trust, a look that pierces straight through me. Her eyes are bright, feverish, and inescapably beautiful. I stroke my thumb along the hollow beneath her ear.

"Alice," I say, nothing more.

At this one simple word, she freezes, and a sound escapes her lips: a half-sob, half-laugh — the most glorious sound I've ever heard. And I realize with a sweeping of love that this is her vision of me: her first one, the one that meant the most.

What I feel for her then — for her gift, for her love, for the magic of the two of us together, is so powerful that it seems to light the entire forest with its glow. Silently, I vow to make every year she waited for me worth it. More than worth it. However broken I am, I will love her with all that I have and all that I am, all that she sees in me and all that she believes. I will love her until she forgets what it is to be lonely, until I manage to bring strength and veracity into her life, the way she's so vividly brought color and love into mine. There may be hardship and suffering along the road, because all lives real and worth living include their fair share of pain. But I swear with every shred of honor still in me that I will stand there beside her through it all.

I run a hand along her spine when she arches, cup the back of her head when it falls. My lips are fire on her skin, my hands never let her touch the earth. I touch her, not as if she's made of fragile glass, but as if she's fully flesh and blood, mine and mine alone, the most precious thing I have ever touched, tasted, and known.

It lasts for hours, it lasts for days — until I no longer remember a time when I didn't know the scent of her skin or the feel of her beneath my fingertips. And still she reaches for me, and still I am drawn to her, over and over again. She asked me once what it was like — making love. The truth is I had never known, and even if I had, I never could have explained this. Not in words. Not ever.

I only know that before this began, we were two separate lives. And now, still or moving, silent or brimming with words, I feel so a part of her that I can't imagine how I ever existed without her smile.

***

White stars are beginning to shine in the peculiar gold-spun rose of the sky when we finally lay still, and crickets are chirping in a quiet, rhythmic way that sounds like heartbeat. We are a tangle of white limbs and golden leaves, lying on our backs in the dazed, peaceful way of lovers between passion and waking. One lone gold leaf falls from the tree above us and we watch as it falls gently to next to my hand on Jasper's chest. I run a finger over the veins and stem, across the soft, jagged edge and the vivid color. Strange how a symbol of death can seem so much like life to me, so much like a new beginning.

Jasper sighs, and plays with a strand of my hair. "Let's stay here forever."

I smile against his shoulder. His slow southern voice sounds half-drugged, and his contentedness washes over me like warm sunshine on skin. "I think I'd be willing to consider that. But what will we eat?"

He shifts slightly beneath me. "Well, if we stay still long enough, we could probably lure the animals in under a false sense of security," he says, and the corner of his mouth lifts into a wicked, sexy smirk. "_If _we stay still."

I roll my eyes. "You're funny after sex."

"Better that than _during_, I guess," he says, and we both laugh like we've had too much wine — a dizzy, stupor in which even the worst jokes are suddenly and uncommonly hilarious. Jasper looks so relaxed and happy in this state that I can barely believe he's the same man who I met a year ago in that diner. I love that he can joke like this now. I love that he can touch me like this now. I love that he's mine, and that I'm his, and that we both know it.

He stretches his head up and scrutinizes the clothes around us as if he's looking for something. I look around too, and note with a great deal of humor that the clearing is now littered with the shreds of what used to be my dress and lingerie. A piece of lace is hanging from the tree above us like a victory flag. Jasper reaches out a hand and fishes for his jacket, trying to grasp it with his fingertips without moving away from me. He drags it back toward him and takes a familiar, faded book out of the pocket, opening it to the middle section.

A small, dry twig falls out, along with a handful of brown needles. He takes this small, curious object and places it in my open palm like an offering.

I look down at it in amusement. "I'm sorry, if you want me to kiss you again, the _correct_ plant is _mistletoe_," I inform him saucily, but give him a kiss anyway. His lips curve into a smile against mine, and he pulls back to stare at me as if he's waiting for something.

The twig is very, very old, and nearly falling apart but still smells faintly like the spruce tree it must have been taken from. "What is this?"

He is quiet for so long that I almost begin to think he didn't hear my question, but then he strokes his hand along my hair and speaks. "Years ago, I was traveling through the Appalachians with Peter and Charlotte. We had just escaped a bad hunting incident in Charleston and the two of them were trying to make it to Atlantic City in time for Christmas. We went through a mountain pass, and at the crossroads there was a single spruce tree—"

"I've been there!" I burst out, unable to contain myself. I remembered that place well. I had waited for him there before I had been chased off by a group of humans with tracking dogs. I had seen him there in a vision.

Jasper laughs at my enthusiasm, but motions for me to wait until he finishes. "I caught a scent in the branches of that spruce tree. Your scent. And when I smelled it, I had never— it was like home to me, my first taste of anything good. I didn't know who you were or why I felt so close to someone I'd never met, I just knew that I had to find you. So I searched. I searched for years. I followed you around the country, I think almost a year behind your trail, praying that you would stop somewhere so I could catch up to you. I lost you at the train station in Atlantic City, probably when you went to Middlebury."

Of all the things he'd said to me, of all the things I'd realized and felt over the past few days, this one somehow means the most. I stare at the spruce twig in disbelief, ensconced in some wonderful, flickering emotion that feels like flying. "You were following me?" I whisper, my eyes burning. "You were searching for me?"

He bends his head down to rest against mine. "For longer than you know."

This was why I had only ever seen him in places that I'd been before: New York, Albany, Harrisburg, Buffalo, Toronto, Cleveland, Detroit, Chicago, Frankfort, Lansing, Ottawa, Atlantic City... All the places where I'd searched for _him_, all the places that I had stayed in or stolen in, or hunted in the bordering woods. He had been tracking my footsteps the same way I had been tracking him in visions. He had been drawn to me the same way I had so unquestionably been drawn to him. Coincidence doesn't even begin to describe it — it was fate, it was destiny, it was a miracle. All along we'd been circling each other, pulled together but never touching, bound on the same slow journey.

Jasper wraps his arms tighter around me, and the spruce twig falls from my hand to mix in with the nest of bright golden leaves beneath us. Where it falls, it doesn't matter. This is not the same place we've been before. The blind can finally see, the lost have finally been found, and two people who were never whole without each other know what it is to become one. And I couldn't even say that I wanted to take any of it back, that I wish I had known or that it had happened differently. This was perfect. This was real. This was a love made more by the fight it took to get here, by the years we both waited and hoped.

Love reigns, the crickets sing, and he and I smile together in the dark.

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**A/N:** The title of this story was shamelessly stolen from Vienna Teng. She wrote a song called Gravity, which is not only one of the most beautiful things I've ever heard, but amazingly fitting. The song is available for listening on her website: www. viennateng . com / listen

Look for the song at the bottom right of the page. And... at the risk of ruining a good story with the terrible epilogue, there will be an epilogue. I'll post it as soon as I can. :)


	21. Epilogue

**Epilogue**

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"Denali. It's just above Anchorage. Mountains everywhere. And his name was Ezekiel or Ebenezer or something like that."

Peter squints, trying to remember, then shakes his head and scrawls an address down on the piece of paper he holds in his hands. "I have a contact in the Seattle area who seemed to be familiar with the covens in the surrounding states. I'd look him up first. Beautiful place, you know. A little wet, but very green. We didn't stick around very long because the human population was so slight, but it was a nice area. Just a little difficult to hunt in."

"Unless you're hunting bears," I say with a sideways smile, and Peter snorts.

"I can't believe you're on a _diet_."

"You make it sound sordid, Peter. He looks healthy enough to me. Happy too," Charlotte adds.

The four of us are sitting on the winter beach of Atlantic City, hidden from the humans by a landscape of dunes and unfriendly weather. The cold wind on my face feels good, refreshing, and I don't even mind the occasional patter of raindrops on my cheeks. The choppy grey waves and mass of storm clouds rolling in over the water might have depressed me at one point in my life, but now I simply take in a deep breath of sea air and smile. It is December 25th, sunset at Christmas, and the world has never seemed more beautiful or alive.

Next to me, Alice has her eyes closed, and judging by the lack of aura surrounding her, she is already checking the future. Seattle, Denali, our trip, our coven, our life. I brush the stray grains of sand from the skirt of her dress, and wait patiently for her to return. Charlotte watches me do this with a knowing smile; she keeps staring at Alice and I, taking in all the little details of our interactions: our touching shoulders, the way our bodies are turned slightly toward each other, the lingering smiles and softened voices. Love, in its first few breaths of life, is visible to everyone and everything — like a solid entity brightening the air.

Peter and Charlotte were both appropriately shocked that I had finally found someone, and even more in awe that it was my "mystery woman" from so long ago. I can see through my gift and through their expressions that they are both absolutely thrilled for me, but I can also see that I will have to withstand teasing for many years to come. "He _does_ look happy," Peter says suspiciously. "Give us a scowl or something, Jasper. You're freaking me out."

I roll my eyes.

Alice comes back with an excited burst of happiness. "I hope you have a raincoat, Jazz. You're going to need it! Not only is it wet, but it's cold and it's dark, and we'll be able to go outside in the daytime almost every single day." She squeezes my hands with a typical Alice smile, practically climbing into my lap in her enthusiasm. "His name is Eleazar, _not_ Ebenezer— and he isn't the one we're looking for, but he definitely knows them. I can see us there, talking to him. Do you think we'll be able to find the Cullens, wherever they are? Do you think they'll still be there?"

Because she looks so damn cute with her eyes all lit up like this, I kiss the tip of her nose. "You were able to stay in Middlebury for over ten years. I think there's a good chance."

Peter mimes retching into the sand beside him. "Disgusting, aren't they?" he asks Charlotte. "You'd think it was their anniversary, not ours."

Charlotte laughs and turns her head toward the boardwalk, where the evening crowd is beginning to gather, dressed in the finest furs and fabrics as they make their way from casino to casino. Her eyes rest on a woman wearing sapphire silk, with the same expression of deliberation on her face that Alice has when looking through the latest issue of Vogue. She stands to her feet and motions for Peter to follow her. "Speaking of, if we're going to be gambling at the Traymore tonight, I'll need a new dress."

Alice instantly whips her head around. "Oh, shopping?"

I warily help her up off the sand. "Trust me, darlin,' you don't want to go along. Charlotte's idea of shopping is... a little different."

She takes in Charlotte's predatory expression and comprehends my statement with a little "oh." She smiles as though it's nothing tragic, but in a barely discernible motion, she moves a bit closer to me, disturbed by the notion of killing a human and robbing them of their clothes. I wrap my arm around her, and realize with acute certainty that my former way of life will never fit in with Alice's. This is all or nothing, and no matter how I might abhor the taste of deer and elk, I will have to wholeheartedly throw myself into her world of vegetarian vampires and permanent residences. Somehow though, it doesn't matter to me anymore. Alice is worth it. When we turn away from the beach I let my past life go as easily as picking up a fistful of sand and tossing it to the wind.

"Well, perhaps we should leave you to it, then?" I say, glancing back to the horizon where the sun has set and left behind a grey sheath of mist. "Give you a little privacy on your anniversary?"

Peter laughs. "As if that's ever bothered you before."

Charlotte links her arm through his, and shakes back her pale blonde hair. "Just don't be a stranger, Jasper. When you decide on a date, please let us know. We wouldn't miss it for the world. And Alice dear, it was so wonderful to meet you."

"Likewise," Alice says with a smile, and despite her hesitancy about their way of life, I know she means it. Like Middlebury for Alice, Peter and Charlotte are a part of me; the before chapters, the back-story exposition that made me who I am today. We say our goodbyes at the boardwalk with many hugs and handshakes, and watch the two of them meander through the crowd arm-in-arm. When they finally disappear from sight, Alice looks down with a quiet laugh. "Margaret would have liked Charlotte, you know. She would have liked both of them, actually."

I look at her with compassion, knowing how she misses her house and her friends and the stability of a home. "We can go back again someday. Maybe not right off, but someday. Maybe with our new coven."

"Family, Jazz," she corrects, resting her head against my shoulder.

"Family."

The cold and rain have chased away most of the crowd by now, and the two of us wander the boardwalk alone, just at the edges of the dunes. A haze of fog is rising in the amber twilight, rolling in over the ocean and softening the colors of the city streets. I've walked this street a hundred times — I've breathed in this same misty air, and heard the same distant strains of music of laughter from the brightly lit buildings behind us. But it all seems different somehow with Alice; a new life, a new world, the blessing of a second chance. She is at my side, and she always will be. And try as I might, no matter what I do, I can't seem to remember what it ever felt like to be alone.

"You want to get out of here?" I ask, such a simple question for everything I feel.

"Where to?"

"Anywhere," I say, taking her hand. "Everywhere. As long as it's with you."

***

"_I took her hand in mine, and we went out of the ruined place; and, as the morning mists had risen long ago when I first left the forge, so the evening mists were rising now, and in all the broad expanse of tranquil light they showed to me, I saw no shadow of another parting from her."_

—Charles Dickens, Great Expectations.

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**A/N**: Thank you so much everyone to who has read, reviewed, and taken the journey with me. This was amazingly fun to write.

As promised, there _is_ another story/sequel called **Fear of Fire**, the first chapter of which has already been posted. Go! Read! Enjoy! :)


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